by Abbie Lyons
“Raines,” she said, “are you okay?”
He stood, pitching forward as he did, only to have Bacchus/Adonis rush out and hold him steady. “I’m fine,” he growled. His tie was loose around his neck, and a thin trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth. “It didn’t hurt me too much.”
Too much? I started to protest, but a wave of pain crashed over my body, like I was being squeezed in a giant vice grip.
“Ah!”
“I know,” Tavi said. “I bet it sucks. But I don’t see any major injuries. That’s good news. Here.”
She put her hand to my forehead, like a mom taking a kid’s temperature, and her skin felt pleasant and cool to the touch. I, meanwhile, felt disgusting for the thin sheen of sweat coating me. Then a warm, blissful feeling swept through me, and when it dissipated, the pain was better—still there, but less.
“I’m afraid that’s the best I can do,” Tavi said. “I’m really still learning. Did it help?”
I nodded.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty
The five of us managed to crawl through the hole Raines had created in the rubble, carefully but surely, picking our way through on our hands and knees like it was the world’s worst McDonald’s playplace tunnel. When we emerged, we were in one of the anterooms to the ballroom, which was a total mess—jackets and purses strewn everywhere. This must have been where the Elysium kids were keeping their stuff. Across the way from us, a massive pair of doors marked a stop on the elevator, one we hadn’t used on our trip to visit the relics, which were bolted shut several times over.
As soon as she got through our hole, Tavi gasped and ran forward, throwing herself into the arms of two girls who must have been her best friends. Bacchus and Adonis played it a little cooler, but I could tell they were relieved, too.
“Thanks,” Bacchus—I’m pretty sure he was the shorter one—said, and extended a hand, which Raines actually shook. “You saved us.”
Adonis followed suit, and they followed Tavi to where Dean Serathiel and some other Elysium profs were trying to get a head count.
I scanned around the room, looking for any Hades students, but everyone was in silver, white, or blue.
“Probably back in the common room,” Raines said.
“You think?”
He nodded, took a step, and winced.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “Let’s just find our people.”
I followed him out of the anteroom and back to the staircase that had led us down to the ballroom just a few hours earlier. God, it felt like a lifetime ago that Morgan and I were trying on dresses in our dorm room. Now I wasn’t even sure if Morgan was okay. Or Teddy. Or anyone who’d been on that dance floor.
Raines and I shuffled up the steps in an awkward silence until I felt I had to say something.
“Thanks,” I said. “For the advelum.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Raines said. “It was the only option.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “We could’ve starved to death. That might have been fun.”
Raines stared at me like I was crazy.
“Joking,” I said. “Humor is my default post-trauma response. Sorry.”
Raines said nothing. He’d perked up a little since we left the anteroom, I noticed, and wasn’t wincing anymore.
“Tavi seems...” I cast around for the right adjective, but couldn’t find one that encompassed friendly-nerdy-but-not-putting-up-with-your-shit, so I settled for “nice.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, dude, but after she and I ended up stuck in a castle basement together, I think I’m allowed to have an opinion on her personality. I’m not judging her solely as your ex-girlfriend, okay?”
Raines made a sound like a low growl. Then he picked up the pace.
“Hey!” I balled up the dress in my fist, trying to keep up. “Slow down! Some of us are still a little injured.” A thought struck me. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you hurt, like, two minutes ago? Didn’t the advelum get you?”
Raines slowed his pace. “I’m fine.”
“Uh, well, you shouldn’t be,” I said. “Or were you just bullshitting me about how dangerous it was, and how you absolutely needed my express verbal consent, and—”
“I wasn’t bullshitting.”
God. I almost tugged at my hair in frustration. Why was every conversation with him like this?
“So you are hurt,” I said. “And just trying to be macho.”
At that, Raines paused on a step and shot me a look.
I sighed. “Okay, so you’re not macho. Can you just tell me what the fuck is up, then?”
He stopped, and I legit ran into him, and would have tumbled all the way back down the stairs if he hadn’t grabbed me by the hand.
But as soon as he’d grabbed me, he let me go. I sighed.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” I said. “I’ll figure it out eventually.” And then, because I couldn’t resist, “Maybe I’ll just ask Wilder.”
“Wait.”
Knew that’d do it.
Raines sprinted up to my side. “Look, I wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been life or death. I never would have. Understand?”
“Sure,” I said. “So what’s going on?”
Raines stared straight ahead as we turned a curve in the staircase. The blue torchlight flickered over his face, casting deep shadows beneath his cheekbones. “It didn’t hurt me because of who I am.”
“Who you are?”
“Or what I am, I guess,” Raines said. “Nova, I’m half-demon, but the other half isn’t human.”
What the fuck?
“So that means you’re—” I started.
“Half-demon and half-guardian.”
I was literally lost for words. “How?”
Raines still didn’t meet my eyes. “I think you know how babies are made, Nova.”
I decided not to press that angle. My head was spinning. That certainly explained how he ended up dating an angel. He was an angel. Well, half of one, at least.
“So that’s why the spell didn’t hurt you or me that much,” I said. “Because we’re both half.”
Raines gave a short nod.
“But you acted like it did, because you didn’t want the angels to know.”
“Except Tavi,” he said softly. “She already knew.”
Of course. That’s why she asked him about it. “Does anyone else know?”
Raines didn’t say anything. Which was an answer in and of itself.
“Wilder,” I said.
“Yeah, Wilder,” Raines said, his voice almost a snarl. “To him, I’m not just a bastard, I’m an abomination. An abomination who got the power he’d always wanted.” He looked down at his palm and balled his hand into a fist. “So when you make this whole thing seem like some stupid sibling rivalry—it’s not, Nova. All he has to do is tell Dean Harlowe and I’m gone from here. Away from my friends, away from...” He blew out a breath. “But he hasn’t yet. He’s waiting to see how I can be useful.” His eyes flashed. “And if it has anything to do with the relics—”
We’d arrived at the grand staircase. Raines turned to face me.
“I think we’d better go back separately,” he said abruptly. “To the common room.”
“What?” I was still wrapping my mind around everything I’d just learned. Raines was an even rarer half-demon than I was. Wilder hated him for it and was jealous of his sun line—the same line that I had. Raines had a weird blasting power that hurt me, but not too much, and his ex-girlfriend healed me. He thought Wilder was after the relics. But it could also be Camilla. Oh, and I’d lost my best friend’s shoes somewhere in a pile of stone and plaster.
“I mean, fine,” I said, when I realized Raines was just staring at me. “I don’t care. I’m just exhausted. So whatever. You go first.”
Raines nodded.
“Tha
nk you for...”
“Don’t thank me,” I interjected. “I didn’t do anything. You saved us.”
“Tavi saved us,” Raines said, and even though I knew we’d’ve been sunk without her healing powers, hearing her name stung.
“Fine,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Well, thanks, universe.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Raines said, voice urgent. “Please, Nova. I have to trust you now. But don’t.”
I looked into his eyes, which had just the faintest red gleam, and swallowed.
“I won’t.”
Raines nodded. “Thank you.” He took to the stairs, then stopped. “I like what you did with your hair.”
“NOVA, YOU DREADFUL bitch, don’t you dare make me worry like that ever again!”
I’d hardly stepped a single foot into the common room and Morgan already had her arms wrapped around me and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“You look like a mess,” she admonished me. “A hot mess, but a mess nonetheless.”
“I’m sorry I lost your shoes,” I said as I wiggled my way out of her embrace and gave her a once-over. “You look perfect. Even after all that.”
It was true. Her dress remained unblemished and not a single strand of hair was out of place. Meanwhile, a quick glance at the rest of the students was enough to see that everybody else looked much more worse for the wear.
“Tell me everything,” she said in a whisper. “You snogged Wilder and his brother in one night? You minx!”
It’s a true testament to Morgan’s love of gossip that I couldn’t tell whether or not she was joking. It would’ve been totally on brand of her to care more about snogging—which I’d gathered just meant “making out”—than how I’d actually managed to find my way safely back to the common room.
And of course, the more pressing subject at the moment was what we should do to figure out if Camilla was truly the one responsible for everything. But I knew Morgan wouldn’t want to discuss something so serious until she got her fill of gossip.
“No snogging for me tonight,” I said. “But maybe a little too much excitement anyway. Can we sit down somewhere?”
We grabbed a spot on one of the plush couches and, I have to say, it never felt so good to just sit my ass down.
I scanned the room a bit more. What was that thing it said on the Statue of Liberty? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. That’s kind of the vibe I was getting. Lots of exhausted looking demons with scrapes and bruises just vegging out. I spied Raines holding court with his Infernal buddies, both of whom looked a little shellshocked. Camilla, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.
Shady. And unsurprising.
“How bad did it get back in the ballroom?” I asked Morgan.
“It was funny at first,” she said, much to my surprise. “The DJ was playing ‘Shake it Off,’ so all the movement felt like it might be part of the production. But then when it became clear something was amiss, it was sheer pandemonium. No major injuries that I saw, but certainly a few twisted ankles and such.”
“Teddy?” I asked.
“Our poor boy puked his guts out on that Elysium lass as soon as the shaking really picked up,” she said sadly. “You should’ve seen it. Motion sickness and too much Hellwater is a deadly combo.”
So much for Teddy’s chances at snogging an angel.
“But enough about the ballroom,” Morgan blurted out. “I want to know every little thing about what happened between you and Raines. Did you kiss? I really hope you didn’t, because ew. Were you trapped? Was he a jerk? Spill, spill!”
So I spilled.
Sort of.
I was surprised by how many details were necessary to leave out. The story I told amounted to: Raines wanted to talk about Wilder, ceiling caved in, met some Elysium kids (I did tell her about Tavi), and then Raines used some powers to get us out.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Morgan. At this point, I wasn’t sure if there was anybody in the world who I trusted more than her. But even though Raines wasn’t my favorite person in the world right now, revealing his secret would be needlessly cruel.
Plus, the story was plenty juicy enough for Morgan even in its stripped-down version. Raines running into his ex-girlfriend and me milking the moment for maximum awkwardness? That was Morgan’s catnip.
“Got your fill of gossip?” I asked Morgan as I wrapped the story up.
She nodded. “That tea was exceptionally good.”
“Then down to business. What was Camilla up to when this was all going down?”
“She was one of the first to run out of the room! In that shitty little dress of hers. You’d figure the girl who fancies herself the alpha bitch of her class would wear something less basic.”
“Have you seen her since then?” I asked.
Morgan shook her head.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Camilla was the type to project an image of herself as a tough broad when, in reality, she was the first one to run away screaming as soon as something bad started going down. I’d met plenty of those girls growing up in the foster system.
But something wasn’t adding up. I did one more scan of the room and spotted her two cronies passed out on a loveseat—it was almost hard to recognize them without their ringleader.
Running off from the ball and not returning? Leaving her “friends” behind? As far as I was concerned, that constituted “shady-ass behavior.”
“She has to be the one behind the stolen relics,” I said confidently. “And that somehow created an opening for Chaos. I think. Something like that. But what’s her motive?”
“Well, we know she’s a terrible, irredeemable bitch,” Morgan said. “Isn’t that enough?”
And maybe that was enough. Camilla’s pure awfulness couldn’t be understated. And if that awful person decided her school was too accepting of impure demons, she very well might see it as her duty to invite Chaos in.
“Do you think we should be scared?” I finally asked Morgan. That question had been on my mind for the past few hours, but I knew Raines would have too much manly pride to give me any answer other than “no.”
“I trust that our professors can handle the situation,” Morgan started, “but I really don’t know, Nova. ‘Til now, it’s been my pleasure to answer any question you’ve had. But this is new territory, even for me. I wish I had an answer.”
I rested my head on her shoulder. “I guess we’ll just have to figure this all out together.”
As far as I knew, hundreds—or even thousands—of years had passed since the last time Chaos showed its face at Hades Academy. And while nobody seemed to be seriously hurt, and this could well just be a blip on the radar resulting from some asshole—Camilla—messing with the relics, that didn’t make me feel any easier.
Because I couldn’t help but feel some sort of connection between my arrival here and the craziness of the past few weeks. A feeling deep inside my stomach was telling me you have a responsibility to figure out what’s going on.
If this was Camila’s doing, I was going to have to be the one to prove it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Launching a full-scale investigation of Camilla was easier said than done thanks to that whole “going to class, studying, and doing homework” thing. I wanted to prove she was the culprit, but I also really wanted to avoid failing out of Hades.
Quite frankly, I was disturbed how quickly the faculty at Hades tried to pretend that none of it ever happened. At the very least, I’d expected some sort of school-wide assembly where Dean Harlowe thanked us for our tenacity and assured us that everything was okay.
But no. Nary a mention of how the ball had devolved into—for lack of a better term—chaos. As if we’d all forgotten that a giant supernatural earthquake hit the school in the middle of a Taylor Swift song.
“ Let’s pick up right where we left off, shall we?” Lattimore began his first class following the ball. “The Great Depression was, of course, caused by a panic in the sto
ck market. And despite the rumors, no, that panic was in no way the fault of demons.”
I had a fondness for Lattimore, I really did. He was the one who first took me away from my mess of a life, and I’d always be thankful to him for that. But the extent to which he was ignoring the elephant in the room was honestly a little insulting. How did he expect us to focus on a panic in the 1930s stock market without addressing the panic during the ball?
Everybody looked checked out. The kyrioi were still everywhere, nobody was answering any of our questions, and we all had a vague fear that something bad could happen again at any moment.
To put it another way, everybody had a much shittier attitude toward learning than usual.
Well, all except for Camilla. Her attitude was just as shitty as it ever was.
“Wow,” Camilla said to nobody in particular. “Finally a historical event that we’re not blaming demons for. Bravo!”
Her unchanged behavior only served to make me more suspicious of her. You’d have to be a sociopath to go through the events of the other night and remain exactly the same. She, on the other hand, remained totally unfazed.
Lattimore, as usual, ignored the obvious disdain of her comments. “Indeed,” he said. “Demons are certainly responsible, at least in part, for many awful things throughout human history. But the Great Depression was different. In that moment, demons took a step back and allowed the guardians to exert as much positive influence as possible in order to restore balance. Alas, it took the guardians many years to do so. Not an easy task for them, I’m afraid.”
It was an interesting lecture to consider, and I’m sure I would’ve been much more drawn in if it weren’t for the million other things on my mind. To learn about history while straight-up ignoring recent events was just ridiculous.
In pyromancy class, Professor Lamoureux was just as tight-lipped. And really, what use was there in divining the future when we couldn’t even make sense of the present?
She was giving another one of her back-to-basics lessons where we literally had to create sparks by rubbing sticks together. It was strenuous work, and I found myself drenched with sweat even before I could see the smallest of sparks.
