29. Midnight #2
“Did you get to the memory orb attacks?” she asks.
“Sort of. I wasn’t very good. Hadrian and his commies were disruptive, and they all took to it so easily that they overshadowed everyone else. But the rest of my grades this week made up for today’s defence class.”
She strides over to the pile of books, pulls one of the middle ones out and lays it on the floor in front of me.
“I am not an expert in memory magic. But once upon a time, I took a course as I wanted to examine the influence of certain memories on the effectiveness of contract clauses.”
“I’m listening,” I say, crossing my legs inside the chalk circle.
Mortem materialises in the middle of the room, plods over and plonks himself down a foot away from the circle and passes out again.
“Useful cat,” I mumble.
He raises his head, opens one eye to glare at me and falls asleep again.
I push my sleeves up and call the campus’s magic to me.
I am getting better at controlling it; it’s the one thing Finis doesn’t fight me over.
Despite the hauntings and perpetual reminders of our deal, I have a piece of the campus inside me just as much as it has a sliver of my soul inside it.
When I close my eyes and summon them, the shadowy ribbons fly directly to me. I wrap them around my hands and feel for a notch in the Veil.
“What memories were you taught to use from the shades?” she asks.
“Negative ones, since that’s usually why they’re stuck here.”
“Standard memory magic 101. But, after my course, I experimented. Your mileage may vary, but I found the happy memories were far more potent. Try it and see.”
“Happy memories as a weapon?” I ask, trying not to sound too indignant.
“Isn’t happiness the greatest weapon of all?”
Her words take me by surprise. I falter and lose the Veil notch as I process what she’s saying. How many people use happiness as a weapon? A threat? It’s certainly used to push people to work harder.
If you study more, pass this exam, you’ll achieve what you want. If you get this job, you’ll be able to buy that house.
That’s happiness, right?
I mean, I’m hellbent on breaking my contract because that’s going to make me happy. But have I weaponised my own happiness against myself?
I find another notch and slice a small hole in the Veil. Bending my hands around the campus’s magic, I contort my fingers into the right shape and then whisper words Lex has made me repeat over and over to summon the shade.
A thin wisp appears like a waft of smoke, then it pools and blooms. I step out of the circle, allowing it to fill the space. It’s strange looking through a face. Lucy stands the other side of the circle.
“Good, Midnight. Very good. Draw out the shade’s memories, but where they told you to hunt for the sharp edges, I want you to look for the ruffles. Let the magic ease into the shade, don’t be aggressive with it.”
I follow her instruction, trying not to focus on the fact she’s in her element as she teaches.
The fact that her skin glows as she guides me and witnesses my development.
I try not to notice the way she smiles when I command the ribbons of magic or the way her entire body beams as I make a perfect incision in the Veil.
The shade is fully formed now, she hovers before me, translucent. A curvaceous woman with a pleasant smile.
I extend the shadowy ribbons of campus magic towards her and she flinches as they drift through her ethereal form.
I close my eyes, let my body feel for the memories.
One hits me immediately. It’s much easier than hunting for the fractured edges.
People suppress bad things, that’s why it’s so much harder to find those memories once they’re dead.
It’s why those memories fragment. I like to think of it as our body’s self-defence mechanism.
But this woman has hundreds of happy memories. I grab hold of three, lassoing the ribbons and coaxing them out.
“Does it remove them from her mind?” I ask Lucy.
She shakes her head. “No. The campus magic makes a replica before extraction. Now bring them out carefully. Keep your hands steady because you can do damage if you go too quickly.”
I do as she says, and then spin my hands, swirling and looping them until the memory compresses into a bright white orb.
“Wow,” I say, surprised that it is so much easier this way.
“I told you. Happy memories are always underestimated. Seal the orb so it becomes stable.” I do. The shade smiles at me and drifts back towards the hole in the Veil. Her form dissolves back to smoke and drifts through the opening, which I stitch closed when she’s gone.
I compress my hands over the orb the way a child would squish colourful dough. I push until sweat forms on my brow and my arms tremble from exertion. For once, my nose doesn’t rupture. But I am spent by the time the orb takes on a glassy, solid feeling.
“Done,” I pronounce and display it to her.
She beams at me and then her eyes glint. “Again.”
Ah, fuck.
Lucy makes me repeat the process a dozen more times, until I am so fast that she actually loses count. What is both surprising and delightful is that I didn’t get a nosebleed this evening.
“I’m getting stronger,” I say. “Now for your gift…”
I pull out my copy of her rune. It’s as crumpled as hers is. She frowns.
“I know what it is… I was in my apartment studying and Lex took the drawing from me. I didn’t tell her anything, but she took it and compared it to some old book of hers and told me what it is…”
Her mouth falls open. “You’re lying.”
I shake my head. “All this time we’ve been looking in the wrong places… Looking for demonic languages.”
Her eyes widen, and she takes the paper. “It’s not demonic?”
“No. It’s celestial. That’s why you couldn’t find it.”
She looks up at me, her face growing pale. “Why the hell do I have celestial runes on my body?”
“ That is the real question,” I say.
She lights up the way the sun does every dawn, her features beaming with delight. “We have to celebrate,” she says.
And then she leaps into my arms and plunges her mouth onto mine.