Chapter 12
“Olivia?” I shrieked the second I spotted my best friend.
She stiffened and her golden eyes went wide. “Uh, yes, that’s my name.” She pointed at her name tag. “You have good eyesight.”
I shrugged off the thrall that grappled at my arm. “Olivia, what are you—”
“Who have you brought, Melinda?” Olivia interrupted me, pitching her voice over mine as she swept past me and addressed the muse.
My heart twisted to be so swiftly rejected. Perhaps she was pissed off that I’d left her for dead.
But why would she act like she didn’t even know me?
The Dean sat behind her massive desk and frowned at us. I had expected more… yelling, or promises of death and destruction. Instead, Guinevere looked like her normal self; blonde, beautiful, and obnoxiously friendly. “New students? I didn’t have any on the registry from Professor Payne.”
“I’ve been replaced by a dwarf?” Kaito asked as he yanked himself free from the students who’d been holding him down.
The Dean raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”
If the Dean didn’t know who we were, then something had happened that we could use in our favor.
She doesn’t remember the battle, or us going to Hell, I whispered in his head. Play it cool.
Kaito worked his jaw before answering. “I am… was, a counselor here and responsible for new recruits alongside Miss Williams. How could you forget?”
The Dean rubbed her temple. “I’m afraid Calamity has struck the campus with amnesia.
Supernaturals had it bad enough losing memories of who and what they were before coming here.
The Awakening Arena has already been a strain on Professor Payne, but now it’s a thousand times worse.
” She locked her gaze on Kaito, emanating an air of authority.
“If you truly are who you say you are, then you will treat Professor Payne with respect for all he’s done for this Academy.
” She softened. “As for Miss Williams, I’m afraid she’s among the casualties. ”
“Oh,” Kaito said, unclenching his fists. “I’m… sorry to hear that. She was a valuable asset to this school.”
The Dean narrowed her eyes. “Indeed.”
“Excuse me, Miss Gwen?” Melinda asked, raising her hand in an uncharacteristically polite way. “Could I be excused?”
“No,” Olivia answered, to my surprise.
I waited for the Dean to silence her, but when she leaned back and waited for Olivia to continue, I realized that my bestie had somehow turned the tables while we’d been away.
Her golden eyes continued to give off a Heavenly aura and she stood straighter than I remembered.
Regaining her soul and being left to her own devices had been good for her.
“You and I are going to do some interrogation before we let them go. If they came from Hell, then they might have some insight on what we’re up against.”
“Excellent idea,” the Dean agreed, then pointed her finger at Kaito.
“However, this one is far too dangerous.” She narrowed her eyes.
“You might have been a counselor, but I know a demon when I see one.” She snapped her fingers and Melinda flinched.
“I want him locked up with the other one until we learn more.”
I could use the stone right now, Dante growled in my head.
I glanced at him to see his fist closing around the angelstone.
My mother had said that any of my mates could wield its power since they were all connected to me, but now was not the time or the place.
Without sealing the mate-circle, I suspected the outcome to be the same as last time—and we couldn’t retreat back to Hell, not with Lucifer just waiting for us on the other side.
No, I ordered back in our minds. We follow Kaito’s plan.
I didn’t mention that I had a sinking suspicion of “who” she meant when she had referred to the other demon.
Cole.
I’ll find him, Kaito promised me as he allowed the students to shackle his wrists with chains. I promise you, Koneko-chan. We’ll unite the mate-circle and fight Calamity, but we have to do this my way.
I gave him a nod of agreement as the students dragged him away. The Dean snapped at one of the Dark Mages. “Go with them and make sure he doesn’t try anything.”
Hendrik stiffened when the mage obeyed the Dean and didn’t glance at him even once.
Hendrik was no longer the leader of the Dark Mages, and that was another issue he’d have to come to terms with. Without his mages on our side, we needed to find Cole now more than ever.
Olivia ushered the rest of us toward the door. “Okay, out with you. The Dean has enough on her plate without us distracting her. Let’s go to my dorm for this.”
To my surprise, Melinda smiled and led the way. “Last one to Ollie’s place is a rotten egg!” She pranced across the hall and scampered down the steps with her thralls in tow.
I gave Olivia a raised brow. “Ollie?”
She sighed and pushed me out the door. “I’ll explain once we’re alone,” she whispered.
“And give me a hug,” I added.
She smirked. “You bet.”
“I got this,” Olivia called after Melinda when the muse turned around and shielded her eyes against the light to check on our progress. “You go on ahead!”
I glanced up at the sky. As usual, there wasn’t any sun to speak of, but the atmosphere warmed with a red glow as if in perpetual sunrise. “How close to Hell are we?” I asked my Hunter.
“Close enough that we’re past the surface layer. This heat says Fortune Academy’s realms have progressed further in. That’s not a good sign. Whatever Calamity is up to, it’s trying to merge with Hell.”
“Does that mean our plan won’t work?” I asked.
He hefted the angelstone and it sparkled as he gave it to me. “I think it knows what we’re up to and it’s trying to take over Hell before we trap it.”
Sighing, I took the stone, then thought better of it. “You should hold onto this.”
Dante gave me a raised brow. “You sure?”
I nodded before handing it back. “Yeah. I don’t know what the Dean might try and that stone is our only shot at defeating her. It belongs with someone I trust.”
Dante’s features remained stoic, but I spotted the twitch of his jaw. It meant a lot to him that I would trust him with something so important.
“What the hell have you guys gone through?” Olivia asked, making me chuckle.
“Forget us!” I yelled before wrapping my arm around her neck, pulling her in for a hug. “What about you? I thought I’d lost you.”
“Yeah. I’m okay, Lils. But seriously, when I saw you fall into a fiery pit in the ground, I lost my shit.
” She chuckled as she pulled away. “It’s how I tapped into my powers, actually.
It hurt, you know? Seeing you disappear like that.
The pain and regret on your face that you had to leave me behind even though you didn’t have a choice. ”
“I didn’t want to,” I insisted as I grabbed her hands. “I shouldn’t have left. Not without you.”
“No,” she said, her voice stern. “They would have killed me and everyone else. You made the right choice.”
I bit the inside of my lip because no matter her logic, I didn’t believe her. Leaving Olivia behind was one more sin to add to the pile of unforgivable acts that said why I deserved to go to Hell.
Or go back to Hell, anyway.
“So what happened?” I asked.
She smiled and tugged me along. My Virtues followed, protective and a step behind as we walked onward. Melinda and a few of her thralls had gone on ahead. They surrounded her like some zombie escort service, but she seemed happy. Too happy to be the Melinda I remembered.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Olivia admitted as she squeezed my hand.
“I just felt all of this pain and I was terrified. Then something inside of me escaped and it went out in a shockwave. It took everyone’s memories with it.
The Dean didn’t know who I was and when she saw I was a Light Mage, she thought I was here to help, and I’ve been more or less in charge ever since. ”
“You’re in charge now?” Hendrik asked.
“Don’t sound so bitter about it,” I chided. “You’ve always underestimated Olivia.”
My best friend glared at my mate. “Why did you keep him alive, anyway? You could have let him burn down there.”
Hendrik’s dark eyes danced with warning. “Come here and say that to my face, you—”
“Hendrik,” I warned, and he fell silent.
“We’re her Virtues,” Orion said, his tone patient. “We’ve all been through Hell and back, literally, and I promise you that we’ll protect her with our life.”
Olivia gave the demigod a raised brow. “Interesting.” She nudged me. “What’s a Virtue?”
Right. Guess I had some explaining to do in the whole savior-of-the-world department.
The rest of the walk to the freshman dorms—or what had once been the freshman dorms—consisted of me filling in my bestie about me being the Champion of the Third Echo of Calamity and how I had called all my Virtues to assist me in the fight.
She laughed when I told her that the Dean was the Conduit of evil and chaos we planned on trapping in Hell once I found Cole and awakened the full potential of my powers.
“Damn, and I thought I had it rough keeping the Academy in one piece after the shit the Dean pulled. You know, after you broke through to Hell, we started getting bombarded with attacks from all sorts of monsters. Demonspawn, vampires, Incubi, Succubi and sirens, all sorts of stuff. They’ve been trying to go after the Dean and we didn’t know why, but if she’s the Conduit and Lucifer wants to use her power for himself, then I guess you’d better get to her first.” She tapped her lip as she walked up the steps to the dorm.
“But Kaito is right. You said he feared she’d remember who she was if you tried to take her to Hell, and I fully believe that.
My theory is that when I wiped her memory, she started pulling the Academy closer to Hell.
I don’t know what kind of supernatural she is, but she’s powerful.
The Dark Mages have been working overtime trying to push Fortune Academy out of the pit it’s sunken into, but we haven’t been having much luck.
She’s strong—and if she remembers who she is, we’re all toast.”
“My mages can’t fight her?” Hendrik asked with a skeptical look. “Then they’re not pulling in enough blood duty. That shouldn’t be difficult with the amount of suffering going on around here.”
Olivia glowered at him before bumping his shoulder to get past him.
“You think we haven’t been trying? The Dean has the mages using the majority of the tithes to travel to and from Earth to keep up her search for the perfect “vessel,” as she calls it.
She claims that she’s looking for the right recruit to stop the monster attacks, but I saw her memories.
She’s Guinevere, as in the Guinevere. I don’t know what she is, but I know that she fell in love with a guy named Lancelot.
She fell for him so hard she took his last name after he died and now she’s been trying to resurrect him ever since. ”
“That would make her the perfect candidate to be the Conduit,” Dante said with a sneer.
“Yeah?” I asked. “Why’s that?”
“It’s just something Kaito told me,” he said as he rubbed the scar around his neck.
He always did that when I made him uncomfortable.
“He said that Calamity is drawn to sources of suffering and can drive the Conduit mad. He had his suspicions of who might be the Conduit, including the Dean, but he couldn’t pinpoint what she might be suffering over. Now it makes sense.”
We went silent as we reached my old room. “How did you talk them into letting you stay here?” I asked Olivia.
She shrugged and pushed open the door that was already ajar. She watched Melinda as the muse gathered beers from the fridge and swayed her hips. “Music!” she ordered and one of the thralls turned on the sound system.
She grinned as she held up our drinks. “We chug before interrogation! Muse rules!”