by Cara Wylde
“Maybe it’s a good idea to meet other revenants,” Corri said as she landed on one of my pillows. She pulled out the post-it with the names I’d given her. “They might help you adapt to your new condition.”
“The condition of having to sacrifice young women every three months?” I was fuming.
The pixie shuddered. “If you put it that way…”
“I’m taking them all down with me.” I paced my dorm-room frantically, tripped over some clothes GC or Paz had left on the floor, cursed, and kicked them hatefully. “I don’t care if I die, if all the revenants on this part of the world die. That thing will not be allowed to live and eat people anymore. I won’t allow it.”
“And Francis?”
I sighed and plopped onto the sofa. “Don’t start with that…”
“Would you kill Francis, too? I thought you loved him.”
“I love him. And because I love him…” An idea occurred to me. It was probably stupid. Like all my ideas had been, lately. “Maybe the Saint-Germains are wrong and the revenants don’t necessarily have to die if the god is banished back to where he came from.”
“That seems like a stretch. We all saw how your… err… body changed when you refused to feed the creature. If he’s banished, you can’t feed him. Hence…”
“Ugh!”
I felt trapped. Again. God, I was trapped in so many ways! All my life, that was all I’d known. Trapped, trapped, trapped. At first, I was a human trapped in a world I felt I didn’t belong to, with a family who’d made my childhood pure hell. Then, I was a human trapped in an Academy for supernatural beings, and oh, how they’d all made sure I knew I didn’t belong here, either. Now, I belonged. Kind of. Trapped because I couldn’t dream jump, trapped because I couldn’t get to my mother, trapped because I couldn’t do shit about Morningstar, trapped because my life now depended on a monster that was anything but vegetarian.
“What do you have for me?” I changed the subject.
“I checked these people, like you wanted. You know more than half of them are dead, right?”
“I wanted to be sure.”
“Three more babies were born since Paz did your family tree. Two boys, one girl.”
“Hm.”
“Anyway, we might have two candidates. One is Sofia, a very distant cousin of your mother’s, on her father’s side, though. Sofia is forty, married to her second husband, and has two boys. She doesn’t live in Bulgaria anymore. After her divorce, she took her boys and moved to the UK, where she met a doctor and got married.”
“Too old.”
“Seriously? Because I saw her, and she doesn’t look forty. The women in your family have impeccable genes.”
“She’s got two sons and a husband. Her hands are full.” I didn’t feel like telling Corri the real reason why I was rejecting her. I didn’t need a mature woman who’d already gone through life and seen plenty. I needed someone more flexible. Someone I could… Okay, fine! Manipulate. “Who’s the other candidate?” I hoped she’d say the name that was on my mind, that had been on my mind for a while.
“Yolanda Aleksiev. Your cousin. Actually, second cousin.”
After an exhausting day, I finally felt a bit more relaxed. “Tell me about her.”
“She’s eleven, living in an orphanage.”
I blinked. Well, that was unexpected. “What happened to her parents?” I remembered Paz saying that he couldn’t discover the name of her father, but the last time he’d checked, her mother, Anelia, was alive and well.
“Bus accident. Many people died, and Yolanda’s mother was one of them. Since there was no one left to take care of the child, she ended up in the system.”
No one, indeed. Her grandparents dead, her great-grandparents just as dead, and her mother’s first cousin, Katerina Angelov, lost in a parallel universe.
“Didn’t she have an uncle? What happened to him?”
“Poof!” Corri spread her tiny arms wide. “Vanished. Some say he ran from home when he was twenty and never came back.”
“Hm.”
“You know, Mistress… your family is very sad. Not on your father’s and grandfather’s side, though. They had brothers and sisters, each with their families… They’re spread far and wide.”
“But they don’t suffer of schizophrenia.”
The pixie sighed. “Sofia does take a lot of pills.”
“What about Yolanda?”
“She’s just a kid…”
“So?”
“They don’t care about kids there. I haven’t noticed anything particularly worrisome about her, and I’m glad, really, because she wouldn’t have access to treatment if she were to need it. She seems like a normal kid. She’s introverted, spends most of her time reading, stays out of trouble…”
“Why is she a candidate if she’s so normal?”
“She sleeps a lot.”
Gotcha!
CHAPTER NINE
My plan was taking shape, but the more I worked on it, the more I built it in my head, the less appealing it was. I couldn’t tell my guys about it. They would have put an end to it before I’d get to explain it to them properly and come up with believable excuses. My guys… They were better than me. Days passed, weeks… and I sometimes slept with all of them, sometimes only with GC and Paz, sometimes I sneaked into Francis’s bed, sometimes Sariel came to spend the night in the North Tower. And the more time I spent with them, the more I started to believe that I didn’t deserve them at all. I had to keep silent. Corri was my pixie, so I knew I could trust her not to tell a soul. She’d carried out her mission brilliantly, and now I wanted her by my side, because she was the only one I could bounce ideas off of. She didn’t like my plan, either.
I need someone who has the guts to see this for what it is and tell me it’s right. The end justifies the means. I need someone who’s stronger than me. Except in this case, strong didn’t actually mean strong. It meant amoral. Lorna.
The mage was in the Library, buried in books. She was studying griffins for her field trip with the Righteous Death Cabal. I sat next to her. I should have been reading about scarabs myself, but I’d been distracted in the past few weeks.
“I heard Mrs. Maat almost didn’t let you go to the Carnelian City,” she snickered.
“Headmaster Colin sorted it out.”
“Wouldn’t you be much happier if everyone knew the truth? No more hiding. Less stress.”
“My father left me with no money. The only thing keeping our dear classmates from shunning me is that everyone still believes I’m the human prophesized to retire him. Imagine finding out I’m a revenant, supernatural like all of them, and I have no chance of standing up to Morningstar.”
“Yeah. You used to be special. Not anymore.” She closed the book she’d been reading, and looked up at me, amusement mixed with wickedness in her deep blue eyes. “I honestly thought the only reason the guys wanted to get into your pants was because you were a normie, and they’d never had normie pussy before.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “And I honestly thought we were past this. I didn’t hook up with Sariel and Francis until after I became a non-normie.”
“You kissed Sariel way before that.”
“It was just a kiss.”
“So it doesn’t count?”
“Count how? You’re losing me, Lorna.”
She sighed, annoyed that I wasn’t in the mood for her games.
“What do you want? You always sit with me when you want something, so spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
I slid a post-it over to her. This one had only one name on it. Yolanda Aleksiev. Lorna cocked an eyebrow.
“Who is she?”
“My cousin. She’s also the dream jumper who can help us find my mom and then find Morningstar.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why aren’t we all in the cavern, talking about it?”
“I want to keep this between us. For now. Corr
i went to see her. She’s just a kid. Eleven. Her father disappeared and her mother died in an accident a year ago. She lives at an orphanage.”
Lorna smirked. “Convenient.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. No one to take care of her, no one to protect her and tell her a distant relative who suddenly remembered her could be a bad guy in disguise…”
“I’m not a bad guy! The fuck is wrong with you? What do you think I want to do to her?”
“Turn her…”
I shook my head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Turn her into you. Abandoned by her father, her mother dead… You see yourself in her and you’re thinking… ‘I have another chance! I can make this right through her!’ Tell me I’m way off, and I’ll shut up.”
I stood up and started pacing the floor. Two students sitting at a table across the room looked up, then saw it was me and went back to their stuff. They’d gotten used to my drama.
“You’re not… way off. But I’m not trying to hurt her. I just need her to help us, that’s all. If she’s a dream jumper, then she can finish what I started. And I will protect her with my life.”
“And you believe that. What you just said…”
“It’s true!” I yelled, pissed off at her. She was starting to get on my nerves.
“Then why aren’t you telling the others? Your boyfriends, Klaus, Patricia…”
“I have to be sure first.”
“Sure of what?”
“That she can help us. Corri told me she sleeps a lot, but there are no signs she might be suffering of schizophrenia. Maybe she’s not a dream jumper at all, and I’m just getting ahead of myself.”
“No one in your family suffers of schizophrenia, Mila.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You were a dream jumper, and you weren’t acting weird at all. Well, you’ve always been weird in your own way, but not like you needed to be locked up or something. Your mother was diagnosed because she was more than a dream jumper. She was a dream… err… I don’t know. Switcher.”
I nodded. After I saw her in that dream, I’d told the Arcane Cabal about her unique gift. She was one of the few who could switch places with herself from other parallel dimensions. It was how Morningstar had managed to move her from this dimension to the other. Although… I still didn’t know the details. I had to remember to ask Corri about what she’d meant when she’d said she knew why my mother couldn’t find her way back.
“I never switched places with myself from somewhere else.”
“You didn’t have the time to learn how.”
“Anyway, I don’t know if she’s the one.” I stopped in front of the table and placed my hand on the post-it. “Corri can’t read minds and can’t follow her in her dreams. If she dreams at all, that is. And she’s a pixie, it’s not like she can just go in there, introduce herself, and shake hands.”
“Dream journal?”
“I thought about it. Corri checked, and she doesn’t keep one.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“Go there and meet her. I thought you might want to teleport with me.”
Lorna straightened her back. A smile grew on her face, and it wasn’t wicked at all, like her smiles usually were. In fact, it was so cute and genuine that she tried to hide it by turning it into a fake frown.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
“After the field trip?”
“Whenever you say, boss.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Carnelian City was named that way because… surprise, surprise! It was all made of carnelian. To the people living here, the semi-precious stone was sacred. They used it to decorate their buildings, carving the marble and gluing thin slices of carnelian into it, like I’d once heard the Indians had done at the Taj Mahal. I hadn’t seen the Taj, since not many deaths happened there these days. They also used it to make the most beautiful jewelry I’d ever seen. Of course, since I was the only girl in the Violent Death Cabal, I was also the only one interested in the jewelry shops we walked by as we headed toward the Great Carnelian Temple.
“We’ll stop on the way back, I promise,” GC said, kissing me on the top of my head.
Professor Maat was telling us how the city had been built, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was fascinated by the people and creatures going about their business, in their shops, bakeries, markets, and open squares. They were of all shapes, colors, and sizes. I even saw two oversized scarabs crossing the street, mindful of the traffic. Oversized meaning they were as big as two ponies. My thorough research had revealed that they were perfectly sentient creatures, they weren’t for riding or pulling carriages and the like, and yes, they were carriers of the scarab flu, a nasty sinus infection that could kill a human in a matter of days. That was why the scarabs, as well as many other creatures that lived here, weren’t allowed to leave their pocket universe. And that was also why I was currently wearing a medical mask Headmaster Colin had enchanted himself. Actually, he’d just pretended to enchant it, so he could maintain the lie that I was human and, therefore, in danger of catching all the plagues of the Carnelian City.
We walked by an open market, where people were selling fresh fruit and veggies. A tall, lanky man with black skin and gold teeth smiled at me and gave me something that looked like a pear covered in snakeskin.
“Thanks!” He didn’t understand me, so I bowed. He bowed back.
I tried to pull at the skin, guessing the thing must have been a fruit. Professor Maat was behind me in a fraction of a second, slapping the thing out of my hand.
“Are you insane?! I told you not to eat or drink anything!”
“But the nice man gave it to me…”
“What are you? A stupid child? Taking candy from strangers?”
GC, Pazuzu, and even Francis were laughing their heads off by now. I scowled at them, and Professor Maat scowled at me. She wasn’t done yet.
“Was it candy?” I asked, trying to see where the fruit had rolled off.
She turned her eyes toward the sky, as if asking God to give her strength.
“No! It’s called Zarin, and it’s a fruit that turns into tiny little snakes in your stomach that digest your food for you.”
My eyes almost popped out of my head. Corri, who was sitting in her usual spot on my shoulder, screeched like a banshee and hid behind my blue hair.
“What happens after they digest your food… for you…?”
She sighed, defeated. In her eyes, I really was a child right now, and she had no other option but to babysit me.
“They curl into balls and you poop them.”
I let out a breath of relief. “At least they don’t wriggle when they come out…”
She shook her head, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me with her to the front of our group. She didn’t take her eyes off me until we reached the temple, and didn’t let go of my arm, either. I felt like a brat who’d promised she’d behave, then went right ahead and did the opposite. But the city was so exotic, so fascinating, and so lush that it was impossible to resist its charm! Everything was shining bright and delicious! I saw men with olive green skin and crocodile tails peeking out from under their long, traditional skirts. There were women so short that they barely reached my hip, and I wasn’t a tall girl by any means. Children with skin as black as onyx selling freshly squeezed juices at street corners, old women covered in white robes from head to toe weaving tiny stones into bracelets and necklaces, and griffins trotting high and proud down the streets, their wings tucked on their backs. Underneath my mask, my mouth was agape. A speck of dust must have found its way in, because I sneezed, and then I sneezed again. Next to me, Professor Maat froze, her huge eyes filled with fear.
“I’m okay, I promise. I’m okay.” I sneezed a third time. “It’s just dust.”
“Scarab dust!”
“I’m okay!”
“Well, if you die when we get home, it’s on Headmaster Colin. That’s all I’m going to say.”
I chuckled and followed her into the Great Temple.
“If Hell didn’t kill me, Professor Maat, I don’t think the Carnelian City will.”
“There are worse places than Hell, Miss Morningstar.”
The Carnelian City wasn’t ruled by a king or queen. The highest authority was the priest running the Great Temple, but this temple was like no other I’d ever seen or thought existed. It was made to worship dozens of gods and goddesses, with human features, animal features or combined, from this pocket universe or from others, kind or cruel, bringers of life or death. It was hard to believe, but I actually saw a statue of Santa Muerte by a window, next to a statue of Ganesha. There was a Jesus on the cross, an Anubis with his jackal head, and… No! No, it’ can’t be! I rubbed my eyes so hard, and when I looked again and saw the same thing, I wanted to pull them out of my head, wipe them on my uniform, and maybe give them a good wash, too.
“GC, is that…”
He was beaming. He stood up straighter, pulled his shoulders back, and now he was walking like he owned the place.
“That’s my grandfather.”
“Golden Calf Apis the First,” I murmured, bewildered. “I had no idea there are still people who worship him.”
“Mr. Apis, let’s not cause a commotion,” Professor Maat whispered discreetly. “These people don’t need to know who you are.”
That deflated him a bit, but he quickly recovered. We stood in front of the golden statue of the calf, with its mighty horns and sapphire eyes. The eyes were literally two generous sapphire stones.
“Handsome, am I right?”
Paz cocked an eyebrow, and Francis sighed. Today was not their day. There were symbolic offerings of rice, flowers, and something that looked like candy at the statue’s feet, but by the small number, I guessed the false god of the Old Testament wasn’t worshipped by too many people in the Carnelian City. At the same time, it was obvious there were so many gods in this place, that it wasn’t impossible to believe some were worshipped by only one or two people, maybe a household.
