20. Lucy
Lucy
B efore classes start, I make my way down to the demonic contracts library. Mortem follows, weaving in and out of my legs. I swear he’s trying to trip me up. The little shit strolls into the library, hops up on one of the tables, gives me the evil eye and then falls asleep.
The contracts library is located in Finis Tower’s basement and houses copies of every contract every demon has ever created.
Except one.
Mine.
The librarian insists I’m wrong and that I’ve just not searched properly.
I have. I asked Father the location of the contract once.
I was eleven. It resulted in him taking his belt to my arse.
It was a long time before I asked again.
He caught me searching in the archives for it, and when I questioned him, he refused to engage in conversation, stating that, “it’s in the library where it should be.
” And that’s the same response I’ve gotten every time since, too.
I browse the aisles for an hour every few days, my fingers running along fraying and tattered parchments. Each demon’s mark is slightly different, their contractual wording nuanced in the necromantic verbiage and grammar. It’s fascinating the ways in which demons can tie a mortal into knots.
“No joy today?” Mrs. Atasap, the contracts librarian asks.
“No joy today, or any other day,” I sigh.
“My eyes are forever open and hunting for you, dear,” she says and bids me goodbye as I leave the library and ascend Finis Tower’s staircase.
I make my way back across campus and into the Negotiations Lecture Hall.
I always take the first class of every new intake. Why? Because contracts are the basis for all demon magic. The more contracts we create, the more future possibilities we steal, the more magic we harness.
My class is already sat when I walk in.
We are in a borrowed classroom. There’s steep, tiered seating facing a mass of chalkboards along one wall. The sides of the hall are all shelved with relics and items from the dead. Meaningful trinkets, old bones and other things the shades needed to help them move on.
My gaze lands on Midnight first, she’s sat in the back row with Bastien and Lex, the two students in her apartment in House Inferos.
Midnight is wearing black leather trousers, her scythe harness strapped to her thigh and a vest top showing off her toned shoulders and arms, the cut of her biceps visible even though she’s nowhere near a gym.
I swallow and refocus on my notes. I need to get rid of this ridiculous obsession with her. I’m a middle-aged woman with a professional tenure at the greatest academy in the realm, and I do not need my attention misplaced on a student who is likely to get me fired.
“Students of Finis Academy. Welcome and congratulations on passing the Severance Rite. This year is going to be the hardest of your life. Graduates of Finis are well respected for one reason and one reason alone… can anyone tell me what that is?”
It’s the same opening speech I always give. Something to put the fear into them. Set their competitive natures alight.
I’m met with silence followed by uncomfortable coughing and the rustling fabric of bottoms shifting in seats.
A woman raises her hand near the front row.
“Yes?”
She gives the man sat next to her a hesitant glance and then says, “Because we’re qualified?”
Oh, dear demons below. I stare at the woman, astonished. Is she joking? If this is the standard we’re letting in, we don’t stand a chance against the Societas.
“While accurate, that is, on this occasion, incorrect,” I say.
The woman shrinks in her seat.
“The reason is this: Our pass mark is simple… survive the year.”
A peal of nervous laughter ripples through the room. But my face remains expressionless.
A man in the front row raises his hand. “Could you elaborate, Professor?”
“Certainly. You will, of course, receive points throughout the year, and there will be an overall top student. But in order to receive your qualifications, you merely need to survive. That, in itself, will be a challenge.”
The man glances at the student to his right, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly.
I don’t class myself a sadist at all. I’m far more masochistic, enjoying the release that pain gives me.
However, there are a few moments when my morals slip, and I rather enjoy tormenting the new students. This is one of them.
“The good news for you is that there are many ways to gain points. The bad news is that there are many more ways to die.”
“Like what?” A brunette man sat a few rows back asks. His friends all jeer and clap. I guarantee they’re wannabe Veilwalkers; the ego is dripping off them.
“I’m glad you asked.” I inhale and then proceed to rattle off a lengthy list at top speed.
“Wraith attacks, ashspawn attacks, sigil and or rune backlash, death by haunting, suicide, in-class duelling, incorrect Veilwalking, fabric fuck-ups, death by fear, accidentally cutting your soul, losing your soul, breaching the Veil while inadequately prepared, pissing the Tower off, and I suppose getting hit by falling bricks, given our current tremors. Those are off the top of my head, shall I continue?”
The entire hall is silent.
“I didn’t think so. Now, today is the introduction to contracts. Can anyone tell me why we start here?”
“Theft is the basis for all demonic magic,” Midnight shouts from the back.
A couple of the students hiss out an “Ooouch” and a couple of others shout “Burn.”
“Would you mind putting your hand up in class. What’s your name?”
Even from the front of the lecture hall I can see the smirk she gives me.
“I think you managed to pronounce my name just fine last night, don’t you?”
I freeze. The students reach a frenzy, squealing at her banter and cheering for her.
My cheeks flush red as I try to work out what the hell she’s talking about?
How dare she talk to me like this in front of the entire cohort.
I clench my jaw. Her eyes glitter up in the stands. I swear to the archdemon I will?—
“Midnight,” she moans her own name in the exact tone that slipped out when I was in the shower last night.
Oh. My. Gods. Heat blooms everywhere from my cheeks to my pussy.
The noise I heard in the shower. I poked my head out the door but heard nothing. I assumed I was on my own and it was just new apartment noises. Was she… she wouldn’t?
How dare she humiliate me in front of the entire class.
I grit my teeth. “Well, Midnight. You can stay behind after class and write me an extra essay on the ethics of appropriate class behaviour.”
“Oh, I’ll happily stay behind for extra class,” she says, and there’s a rumbling of ‘whaaaayy’ cheered around the room.
I ignore it and turn to the chalkboard, my neck as scarlet as my cheeks.
My hand shakes as I write contracts vs covenants.
“Does anyone know the difference between contracts and covenants?” I ask.
Bastien flings his hand up.
“Bastien?”
“Covenants are the angelic version of a contract.”
“Good, at least someone in House Inferos is academically inclined.”
Midnight’s smirk grows deeper, as if she knows she got to me.
The rest of the class goes smoothly. I take them through the basic anatomy of a contract and the most regularly found clauses.
When the class files out, Midnight stays sat in her seat.
The last student files out, and I lock the lecture hall door.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
She stands up and slowly makes her way down the tiered seating as if she has all the time in the world.
“You’re the one jerking off over a student.”
I gasp, check the door is actually locked.
“Did you break into my apartment last night?” I hiss.
She’s in front of me now, stepping closer and closer until I hit the wall. She leans in, trapping me in place with one hand against the wall and leaning into my other ear. Her breath is hot, the scent of vetiver and grapefruit rich and heady.
“The real question is, did you masturbate over Daddy last night?”
“Midnight,” I gasp.
But I’m no longer thinking straight. My mind has short circuited. My breath hitches.
“You… you can’t talk to me like that. You can’t behave like that in class, either. It’s not okay. We could both lose everything. They fired a professor here a couple of years ago for fraternising with a student.”
She pulls back, her expression shifting from molten lust to a deeper heat, a fury etched into her bones.
“How long?” she tugs her hand through her hair.
“How long what?”
“How. Long. Have. You. Known. Who. I. Was?” She spits every word.
Oh.
She shakes her head and steps away. The space between us suddenly vast, and cold.
“Wait,” I say, and surge forward, though every rational cell screams at me to let her be angry. To use the situation to put much-needed distance between us.
“How fucking long, Lucy? Why wouldn’t you have told me?”
“Because I didn’t know. At least not at the graveyard.”
“Then when?” she snaps.
This time, it’s me getting closer. She rests her arse against the shelving filled with trinkets and bones. She’s furious, her nostrils flaring, and yet I still find myself stepping closer.
She’s seething. Heat simmers beneath her skin, but it’s pliable, changing. It seems to swing between rage and, and… lust?
I tell her the truth. “The morning of the Severance Rite.”
She shakes her head at me. “I hate everything you are.”
An urge swells up, my fingers twitching, my feet driving me forward. Midnight’s energy frissons with lethal vigour. But I ignore it and lean close, pressing my forehead to hers.
“You don’t. You hate my father.”
“No,” she says, and suddenly I’m spinning. My back slams against the bookcase. She grabs my throat with one hand and slides her scythe under my chin with the other.
“One swipe and it’s all over,” she says, but I’m no longer sure if she’s talking about my life or hers.
My heart hammers so loud I feel the beat in my tongue. I swallow against her fingers.
“Please don’t do this to hurt him. I just want to be free. Like you.”
“What?” she says, the hardness in her gaze faltering.
She releases her grip on my throat, her thumb rubbing gentle circles where I assume she’s left marks on me.
My tongue slides over my lips. Is it wrong that I like the idea of her marking me?
“What do you mean you want to be free?” Midnight asks.
I glance at the door, making sure it’s still locked.
Gods forbid someone came in. Telling Midnight this is a risk.
If anyone found out what Ignatius did, binding someone underage into a contract, his reputation would be defiled.
And that is the one thing he won’t tolerate. Even Thalia guesses at the truth.
But I am tired of carrying this burden on my own. So I decide to do the unthinkable.
“You aren’t the only one Ignatius has locked in a contract,” I whisper.
She folds her arms, her expression thinning. “Say more.”
“When I was a child, he saved my life by forcing me into a contract. So you’re not the only one who wants freedom.”
Her head hangs low. “Trapped, just like me.” But her words are quiet, spoken to herself rather than me. “That motherfucker.”
“Let me help you,” I say, an idea forming.
“You can’t help me. I have less than a year until he reaps me. Finis and the Demonic Favour is my last chance at salvation.”
“Exactly. Hear me out. Let me train you. You won’t win without additional training. The students with families that have come here for generations start with an advantage.”
“Why would you do that? What’s in it for you?”
“Well, it’s not for free. I can’t break my contract by myself because it forbids me from making a move against Ignatius.”
“And how exactly do I do that?”
“Does it matter? If I help you win that favour and you break your own, does the cost really make a difference? What are you willing to do to save your soul, Midnight? How far would you go?”
My words are potent. She stares into the distance, her vision unfocused. She snaps to attention and holds out her hand.
“Fine. You got yourself a deal.”
“Oh no, Midnight. That’s not how I seal my deals…”