44. Midnight
Midnight
Forty-Eight Hours To Go
T he last week was exhausting. If the weight of my ticking clock weren’t enough, I now carry Ignatius’s secret too. The lie the entire city believes…it’s all unravelling.
Ignatius has been skittish all week. Every time I see him around campus, he glares.
A threat, a warning, or perhaps an omen of what he plans to do if we spill his secret.
He hates the fact I’ve been helping Lucy unlock her contract, but his tight shoulders and pallid skin tell me it’s less rage and more fear.
What is he afraid of?
We still haven’t unlocked the final rune, despite best efforts. But I know the truth lays in it. And I can’t think about any of it because today is the day I win the favour. I have to.
I’ve spent a year obsessively studying. Lucy fulfilled her promise of helping—we spent every second of the last week practicing and training. It’s on me now. My biggest competition is Hadrian, and to my surprise and disdain, Aurelia. There’s no fucking way I’m letting Aurelia beat me.
Not today.
Not again.
Today is a two-part exam. While they’ve been testing us on all our subject areas, our final marks for the top student are allocated based on our performance in our two best subjects. Mine being weaving and walking.
My friends and I make our way to Finis. We all clutch each other knowing this could be the last day we’re together.
Bastien pulls me into a hug so tight I have to tap out.
“Gods, Bastien, don’t suffocate a bitch before her exam,” I mumble into his chest.
“Sorry, I’m proud of us, that’s all. Thank you for the support this year, it’s been…”
“Yeah,” Lex says, pulling us both in again. “It has. And two days from now, when it’s all over and Midnight is still with us, we’re going to get shitfaced. Got it?”
The three of us smile, but mine never meets my eyes and I’m not sure either of them believes the words.
We part ways and each descends the stairs to our levels. Even though my primary subject is Veilwalking, my assessment is on level minus five.
I step down, down, down, but the stairs seem to meander and drift and the fifth floor never appears. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. Today isn’t the day to fuck about, Finis.
My heart rate escalates. I move faster. I swear I already passed floor three. But there it is again.
And then again.
I stop. Rub a hand over my face and force my heart to slow. I will not let the campus get under my skin today. I hold a hand against the brick and silently tell Finis I will not be fucked with today.
Then I move again. Whether it’s my veiled threat or the fact a breeze wafts over me that feels like a smug huff and tastes like satisfaction, or the fact I’m now unnerved, floor five finally appears.
When I locate the central hall, a ton of Doorstops are already waiting.
They fidget in their seats, rub their knuckles anxiously and throw skittish looks across the room.
I’ve shown enough proficiency in Veilwalking that they’re primarily assessing my weaving today, with walking threaded in for easy bonus points.
I scan the observation deck; Lucy catches my eye and gives me a wink. She’s sat with a pile of parchment, marking exams, I imagine.
The professors have thought about today and put out a ton of refreshments, though they mostly go untouched. Too many pallid complexions and furrowed brows. At least I’m not the only one feeling sick.
We’re taken in one at a time to be assessed while the rest of us just wait.
The ticking clock on the wall grinds on my nerves. I have enough reminders of what tomorrow will bring without an incessant ticking.
Midnight.
That voice, no, Architecti, calls. I ignore it. In forty-eight hours I’ll be dead if I don’t win this, so what does it matter if she doesn’t get Lucy?
Professor Alistair Ironheart walks out of the assessment room and calls my name.
“Mercedes Midnight?”
“Here,” I say and traipse my way over, but I leave my stomach where I was sat. Bile licks at my throat as I slip into the testing room and close the door behind me.
The archdemon Chancellor Arcadius sits at a long table with Alistair and a couple of the teaching assistants and a professor I recognise but can’t remember their name, T something, I think.
“Don’t be perturbed by the audience, they’re mostly assessing me for my conduct and organisation of the exam. Professor Taplin is making sure you don’t cheat. But that’s it,” Alistair breathes in my ear.
“Okay,” I say.
“There are three assessments,” Alistair begins.
“I will make rapid cuts of the Veil, and you are to stitch them as effectively, neatly and as rapidly as you can. For the second assessment, you’ll need to cut a hole large enough for the Chancellor himself to step through, seal him in and then unseal and release him.
And last, the most dangerous test. We will strip you of your campus magic.
You will need to draw on your own stores and emotions to weave a thread of magic strong enough to cut the Veil.
You will enter, seal yourself in and then cut your way out, closing the Veil behind you. All without Finis magic.”
I try to process everything he says. I didn’t realise we were having to step inside the Veil without anyone to protect us.
We’ve not done that before. Thank fuck I took additional defence lessons.
And for the first time in a decade, I’m quietly pleased I’m a reaper.
Knowing my scythe is strapped to my hip gives me a little—but not much—relief.
I’ve already forgotten the first assessment, but thankfully Alistair takes me through it again before moving me inside a salt circle and placing himself on the other side.
“Ready?” he asks.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
“Good luck, Midnight. Omnia mors aequat.”
I call the campus magic to me, opening my hands and connecting to that piece of my soul that’s buried inside the Tower somewhere. Buried, I realise, with Architecti.
Dark ribbons fire off the walls in quick succession until my hands are smothered in pulsing magic.
“Ready.”
Alistair smiles, perhaps a little too widely. But this is our favourite game, and I am the best in class. He winks and then he fires magic out in a lightning-fast explosion.
His hands move left and right, up, down, behind me, in front. He’s fucking quick.
The air fills with Veil rips, little glimmers of the other side floating wherever his magic cuts.
But I am just as good as him. And I fling magic at the tears in rapid succession. My fingers move so fast I surprise myself. My mind switches off, my body moving on autopilot.
Sweat trickles down my neck, but I remain focused, predicting Alistair’s movements and coming in milliseconds after him to stitch where he’s cut.
His eyes widen as I speed up, stitching every cut he made until I’m right behind him. I grin as he grows tired, and I continue to match him stitch for cut.
Finally, he staggers back, sweat running down his temples, breathing hard.
“I’m out,” he says. “Bravo, Midnight. That was excellent.”
My lips twitch, I try not to appear too smug, especially with Chancellor Arcadius and the other professors taking notes behind their desks.
Alistair passes me a bottle of water as he glugs from another then wipes his brow and resets the room.
“Chancellor Arcadius, if you please,” Alistair says.
Arcadius pushes his chair back, the feet scraping along the floor, and makes his way to the circle.
His nose turns up when he crosses the threshold.
I mean, fair. I don’t know any demon who’s a fan of salt.
It’s usually pretty harmless to them once they’re a devil like Arcadius and Ignatius, but I guess old habits die hard.
“Midnight,” he says and inclines his head at me.
“Ready?” Alistair says.
I nod.
“Begin.”
Honestly, this test feels easier than the first. While it’s a large cut, the practice I’ve done means that cutting the Veil is as easy as using my scythe. I feel for a notch and swipe my hands up; the only difficulty is making a cut larger than my arm span.
I close my eyes and push the magic out, my muscles burn as the slice reaches the height of Arcadius’s head. I dig deep and fling the magic the rest of the way, and the cut rips with a foot of space above his head.
I baulk when a wraith slips into view. But Arcadius flings his hand out and the wraith is thrown back, rolling and tumbling at least fifty feet away from the tear.
He steps through and glares at me. “I prefer it this side, so make sure you get me back.”
“Yes, sir.”
I bring my hands together, stitching and threading the Veil and sealing him inside.
Alistair steps in to check my stitching. When the scar vanishes, he says, “Seal complete. Begin cutting.”
This time, I decide to show off a little, I draw more magic than necessary from the walls until my arms are coated in throbbing black ribbons all the way up to my shoulders, and then I fling the lot at the sealed cut.
It slices in one very neat, very complete cut all the way to the same height as before.
Alistair lets out a whistle as the Chancellor steps back into the room.
“Impressive,” he whispers.
I restitch the cut and the assessment finishes, my confidence sky high.
They allow me a few minutes of breathing space before the final assessment. Lex had told me about this one—her sister had to do it as well. She said the best emotions to use were the negative ones. Grief was particularly effective.
I hated hearing that. Of course, it would be fucking grief. Grief is what drove me to Finis in the first place.
What better memory to use than the grief of what happened to me?
“Midnight, when you’re ready,” Alistair says and guides me to the centre of the circle.
He squeezes my shoulder and whispers, “You’re killing it, keep going.”
He draws a sequence of patterns over my chest and the scar that sits on my sternum. There’s a white light, a searing heat and then an emptiness like nothing I’ve ever felt. It’s awful. I hadn’t realised how deep the campus has crawled into my mind and body.
“Begin,” Alistair says.
I draw the memory of Aurelia into sharp focus. Her open legs. That woman. The cold press of tiles against my cheek as I laid there all night. The seething hatred. I play the memory over and over until my lids sting with unshed tears and a furnace burns in my chest.
Magic pools around my fists. Slow at first and then faster and thicker, billowing the same way the campus’s magic does.
My magic smells different, as it should, since the source isn’t Finis. It’s darker, bitter, it smells stale and sharp, like mildew exposed to winter. Is that what grief smells like?
I take one last glance at the room and then I sweep my hands open in a severing motion and cut a hole in the Veil large enough for me to step through.
I throw Alistair one last glance. He nods at me, and it’s comforting. Then I step into the Veil.
My breath is stolen as soon as I’m inside, the arid air is hot and billowy like the first waft of an open oven.
It sits heavy in my chest, smoky and clogged with decay.
I stitch the Veil shut, waiting for the scar to disappear. As the last stitch fades, my vision whites.
Midnight, at last. a voice says, both a whisper and a shout.
Architecti.
I can’t see anything. Everything is white and blinding, the Veil has vanished and been replaced with a white room.
“You have to let me go, I’ll die inside the Veil.”
You owe me a soul.
“There was no timeframe.”
You’ve had a year.
“Is it really you…?” I say trying to scan my mind for anything I can think of to escape.
Yes.
All this time, I didn’t want to face the truth of it, but the more we uncovered about Lucy’s runes, the more the nagging grew in my gut.
“A real angel?” And for a moment I forget myself, forget that she is fallen, a murderer, and I fall to my knees.
Yes.
I swear a feather brushes my cheek, gentle, tender. But she’s a killer?
“I can’t kill Lucy. I won’t bring you back to wreak havoc on our world.”
Your city has been deceived. I am not your enemy. They walk among you, disguised. You have to help me. It is your destiny.
My destiny is to be reaped by Ignatius.
Do you really believe that?
I smile. “If you’re asking me if I want another fate. Of course.”
“What if the only other way is to reap Lucy?”
“Then I choose her.”
“Fate repeats. We’ll see. I think there is another destiny meant for you. I can’t hold you here any longer. I have to show you who I am…”
There’s a heavy pressing sensation on my chest, and then my vision fills with colour and stood before me are two young angels and an enormous, looming bridge made of glass and smoke.