12. Midnight
Midnight
I gnatius pulls me aside. “You can’t attend the Academy.”
I snort at him. “My invitation says otherwise.”
His expression darkens; a simmering violence oscillates beneath the surface of his jaw.
“It was you, wasn’t it? All nine times?”
His nose flares.
“You bastard.”
His hand jumps to my throat. But I have spent too long with this motherfucker not to anticipate his moves. My scythe is buried an inch deep in his side.
“Try it,” I choke out against his grip.
He breathes heavy and footsteps rap against the cobbles behind us. He releases me and brushes down my jacket.
“The answer is no.”
I smile, a brief twitch of a thing. “I figured you might say that, but once upon a time, you bent the rules of our deal and forced me to become a reaper.”
He wavers, realisation washing through his features. Fuck, it’s delicious beating a demon.
“Your IOU?” he growls.
I nod. “You gave me an IOU in exchange for being your reaper. I’m calling it in.”
I wink at him.
There’s a beat of realisation, for both of us. Him realising he just lost, and me recognising that I must be completely unhinged because honestly, the wink is way more than a step over the line.
But not one fuck will be given. I practically skip to the cloisters.
By the time I slide between their slender sandstone pillars, reality has hit, and my stomach is churning. Whether it’s anxiety or excitement, I’m not really sure. Probably a little of both if I’m honest with myself.
My fingers caress the weather-worn columns as I wonder how many centuries of knowledge they cradle.
The columns form an arched corridor around the perimeter of the cloisters. In the middle are several ponds housing plump black and silver koi—none of the white, oranges and reds you’d usually see. One lurches left and shoots away, and I realise why it’s drained of colour.
“What the fuck?”
“Dead,” Lex answers, appearing at my side. “Well, reanimated, so half dead? Hey, is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine. Don’t worry about Ignatius.”
“The dean, you mean?”
Right. To Lex he must be an important part of the Academy. To me, he’s the cunt that is going to steal my soul.
“I’ll explain later,” I say and stare at the dead little fish, swimming as if the sun beams and they’ve not a care in the world.
Reanimated fish , whispers the wind, and I have to wonder whether the rumours about this place being haunted are true.
The scent of morning rain, petrichor, and decaying parchment drift through the cloisters on the cool morning breeze. It’s a light, watery, off scent.
My spine tickles, as though I’m being watched. I scan the cloisters, but see nothing other than students, and gargoyles hanging off doors and stone pillars.
“You need to chill, it’s going to be fine,” Lex says and pulls my arm over hers.
The further we progress through the cloisters, the more students join us, each one wearing the same unsettled expression.
A sensation wraps around my insides, coiling like snakes. I keep checking my feet, as if I’m one step from something taking my ankles out. Lex is right, I can’t spend the next year on edge.
I glance back at the fish. “Bizarre that they’re dead and yet moving.”
Lex nods. “They’re reanimated by the Restarts. It’s part of their first term assessments. They have to reanimate small creatures. It’s easier to learn with smaller living things before they try human reanimation. Disastrous otherwise. Can you imagine?”
“What’s a Restart again?”
She sighs. “Resurrection students. Try and keep up. You’ll have to study extra time just to get the base knowledge. Most students come having learned the basics.”
“Most students get their invitations earlier than last night.”
She frowns. “Yeah, that is odd.”
After the first eight rejections, I didn’t think it would happen, so what was the point in studying? I swear I had that ninth rejection, though the invitation it morphed into sits in my back pocket.
A cold prickle nestles between my ribs. Everyone else has probably studied for years and so will be leagues ahead of me.
I’m not giving up. I haven’t come this far just to pussy out because I’m not starting term as the top student. I’ll do whatever it takes for that Demonic Favour. It’s the last resort, the one way I can break my contract and save my soul.
Lex looks me up and down, and hums. “Something tells me you’re going to fall in love with being a Detour.”
I stare at her blankly.
She sighs again, in a super dramatic way, and I fall totally in friend-love with her.
“Detours are Veilwalkers. Only like the most coveted study programme here. Not everyone gets on, and they’re kind of considered the elite. You strike me as one of those lucky kids who will take to it like a reanimated fish in water.” She smiles and jerks her head at the pond.
“Kids? I’m probably going to be one of the oldest here. I’m twenty-nine…”
She huffs at me. “Please. You’re not the only one who struggled to get in. This was my seventh application. I’m twenty-eight.”
A current student in Finis uniform interrupts to hand us maps and papers and then saunters off to hand them to the other shuffling clusters of initiates.
I hold my hand out to Lex. “In that case, I’m formally adopting you as campus tour guide, seeing as you know way more than me, and I am alarmingly clueless.”
“Deal.” She shakes it.
I yank my hand out of her grip. “Easy there, soldier. Let’s not make any of those. I learned that lesson the hard way.” I flip my wrist over, showing her my brand.
“Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry,”
I figure if I’m adopting Lex as friend, then I should be upfront about who I am, what I am. If she found out later and got all judgemental about it, I’d be gutted.
But before I can explain, a bell chimes out.
Its ding wraps around the cloisters. It buzzes in my bones, clatters my chest.
Rings again.
Again.
A ceaseless beat that grows harder and louder the longer it sings.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
“Seven rings for seven devils,” Lex says.
“And what about the angels?” I whisper.
“There are no angels here,” a male voice says. “They abandoned us when Architecti was killed. That’s why half the city wants her back.”
I knew that, at least. It was the crux of my parents’ debates.
The benefits and advantages of a city connected to the celestial realm.
The balance it brought to magic, versus the law of demonic chaos and the creativity it produces.
And then of course, they would meander off into whether or not chaotic magic could be controlled, and if it couldn’t, then what?
And that was without the debate about what we do now we’ve lost access to the celestial realm and the political, societal and magical ramifications.
There isn’t a soul in the city without an opinion on Architecti.
“Can I help you?” Lex interrupts my thoughts.
She’s just shirty enough to let this guy know we’re a twosome and no one else is welcome, without being overtly rude.
If I didn’t love her before, I definitely do now.
“Bastien Malcor,” he says and holds out his hand.
Lex merely looks at it like it’s an old festering sock. I have to bite the inside of my lip.
He’s blond and has the kind of refined white-boy bone structure only a model or jock could pull off.
He’s handsome, a little effeminate, or maybe just comfortable in his skin.
He wears tapered trousers, brogues and a blazer that looks like it should fit right in here, only no markings announce that it’s Finis Academy attire.
“Midnight. Nice to meet you, Bastien,” I say.
Lex pouts but decides to offer her hand. “Lex.”
“As in—” he starts.
“Yes, as in lexicon.” She’s short with him, but softening.
“So, we have a Subtext student, and let me guess…” He scans up and down my body. “Has to be a Detour.”
Gods dammit, I make a commitment to go to the library tonight when everyone is asleep and make a start on catching up.
I’m not letting him think he’s got the upper hand though, so I shrug. “What is with everyone assuming I’m here to walk the Veil.”
Lex makes an indignant snorting sound. “Oh, please. Detours are all about the vibes. And you, girl, are all vibes.”
I glare at her, disliking that she’s read all of this within about three minutes of meeting me.
“Which makes you…” Lex stares at Bastien, squinting and scanning him the same way he did me. “Hmm, scarred hands, and despite your exterior beauty, you hold grief in your eyes. I’m putting my money on a Restart.”
I follow her assessment. The grief lingering in his eyes is stark. Despite the fact he holds himself upright, it’s a cold posture masquerading as a barrier. Gods, Lex is good. Her read is exceptional.
Bastien purses his lips and shimmies his shoulders as if shucking off her judgement.
“Bravo,” he says, though he looks more put out than impressed.
I laugh. “Not so nice having the tables turned on you, is it?”
He ignores my quip and points at the clusters of students. “I’m assuming you two don’t know anyone joining this year, either? There seems to be cohorts of people that have joined together, given the groups walking into the Hall of Unfinished Business.”
I shake my head. “Just me.”
“Me too,” Lex says.
“Then, umm.” His eyes drop to the ground, and I realise he doesn’t want to be alone.
My whole body reacts, a visceral impulse to clutch him tearing through me.
I want to know what shape his grief takes and why a scar runs down from his eyelid to his cheek bone.
One of his eyes is damaged, his pupil permanently blown and a little murky.
I want to pry the story from him, just as much as I want to learn the truth behind why Lex wants to speak to the dead. A trio, all holding secrets and stories and the burning need to secure entrance to Finis.
“Come on, you can join us, can’t he, Lex?”
Lex drags her eyes to mine, a distinct shade of unimpressed drifting through her gaze, but she sags. She recognises the fact he’s part of us now whether she likes it or not.
“Yeah, okay. This year is going to be tough, no one should be on their own. Come on.”
And together, the three of us walk into the Hall of Unfinished Business. And all I can think is that this is some kind of fucked-up irony, because this is where I intend to finish all of my business.