Chapter 31

“Holy shit—another Death Jr.,” I exclaim. “Are there more of you, or are you dusk and night versions all the wild oats Azrael sowed?”

Gideon’s shoulders shake with laughter, but even the tray’s liquid contents remain unmoving. Must be some stasis field. “Do you ever say anything that’s not arch, Wen White?”

“Is arch your posh way of saying funny?”

He nods. “In a saucy, mischievous way.”

“I don’t know about that, but whatever I say, people usually punch or flog—or leash—me for it,” I mumble, still suspicious. “No one ever laughs. So what’s your deal, Giddy?”

“Gid…” He cracks another laugh, before holding one hand out, the other still balancing the tray perfectly. “Please, stop. I have an image to uphold as Death Jr. The Second, after all.”

“Can’t have the new recruits seeing one of their slave drivers giggling, huh?”

“Well, not that much.” He winks before schooling his face into a more serious expression. It reminds me of Godric so much, my heart misfires. “But it’s not true that no one laughs. Lorcan told me he’s been laughing his head off from the first words he heard you say.”

“Oh, Lorcan doesn’t count. He would find a dung beetle rolling its dung ball funny.”

His face splits on another megawatt smile, dripping with blinding white teeth and charisma. “That he would. But I almost pity Godric. The bloody bastard’s anti-humor Grace must be killing him with you around.”

Yeah. Really not a fan of Godawful. Another string of familial strife to maybe wrap around his neck one day.

Gideon starts walking, forcing me to scramble behind him. “Now I saved you from making an even worse spectacle of yourself, repay my kindness with the origin story of that leash.”

“You block my way to cause the accident, then demand payment for preventing it. You’re Godawful’s all-bastard semi-sibling, all right.”

As he guffaws again, I reach a conclusion. This guy is almost as dangerous as his half-brother. He only blinds his prey to the fact by the camouflage of friendliness.

But how much does he know about me? Is he in Lorcan’s—and Azrael’s—confidence, and knows about the Angel Essence situation?

I doubt it. From the way he called me angel-graced he doesn’t know the circumstances of my presence here. But Godric’s inexplicable involvement with me inflamed his curiosity. And I don’t want more beautiful monsters’ interest. That would only lead to more disasters.

Also this one seems viciously intelligent, and if he works out any of the secrets Godric would kill to keep hidden, I don’t wish him to die at his brother’s hands. Even if it would land said brother in Hell and get him off my back. Too Cain and Abel, even for me.

But the more I evade him, the more he bombards me with questions. Snarking the living hell out of him only seems to delight him.

“Got anything, Deon, or were you too busy laughing?”

The lyrical, feminine voice comes from behind me. I turn to find another archangelspawn from that parade looking me up and down. Up close, she’s on par with my roommate. A statuesque grey-eyed brunette with the most striking bone-structure I’ve ever seen. She would make a perfect Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt.

Gideon gives a sighing headshake. “This one is as slippery as my accursed sibling, Tory. But at least she’s entertaining, not infuriating like him. I haven’t laughed that much in the past decade.”

Tory falls into step with us, sandwiching me in their celestial perfection. “Shouldn’t she be blabbering her heart out by now, Deon? Or are your charms failing? You said it would take you two minutes to find out why Godric is leashed to her.”

“She’s here.” I scoff. “And sure, he’s leashed to me. Gotta ask that Angelhole if my neck yanks too hard on his hand.”

“See what’s been keeping me?” Gideon grins at her over my head. “This Wen White is delightful.”

Tory looks at me as if I’m some kind of exotic lizard. “Did she just call Godric Angelhole?”

I smirk at her. “And she sees angelholeness runs in the family.”

Tory’s feline eyes widen. “Bloody heavens, she is a find.”

I roll my eyes at her. “Listen, Giddy’s cousin or sister, or whoever you are—tell him to give her back her tray, then show her your ‘bloody’ backs.”

Gideon chuckles. “Where are my manners? Let me introduce my cousin, Ashtoreth, daughter of Michael.”

I twist my lips at both of them. “I would say charmed, but I’m too hungry to lie. Tell you what? You keep my tray. I’ll load up another one.”

As I turn around, a steel hand clamps my arm. Tory’s. I blink up at her, wondering if she’ll break it, if it would heal, and find her smiling at me—maliciously or not, I can’t figure out. I’m too hangry to care.

“Listen, Ashtrays, I’m telling neither of you squat…”

I almost swallow my tongue at the—presence that flares at my back. The knowledge is instantaneous. Godric.

So can he teleport, or did he just sneak up on us?

The three of us turn to him, and that first moment says everything about where they stand with him. Gideon in a brutal sibling rivalry. Tory in a mixture of desire, deference and defiance.

I fling a hand at him. “Here’s your Angelhole relative himself. Ask him if you’re so curious.”

As Godric levels a lethal gaze at them both, Tory turns to me, resuming her smile. “I’m not lying when I say I’m charmed, Wen White. I will most definitely catch you later.”

Uncertain if this is a threat or what, I watch her streak away.

Gideon meets his brother’s displeasure with a bedeviling grin. Seeing them in the same frame is almost too much for my mortal female mind.

Without taking his eyes off his brother, Godric grits, “Take your breakfast and go eat, White. Finish everything.”

“I would, but your semi-sibling’s hands seem welded to my tray.”

Gideon starts walking again. “I told you I’m escorting you back to your table.”

I huff. “Do you do room service, too?”

His gaze slides over me suggestively. “I can be convinced to…”

He stops abruptly, as if something caught him by the neck, and squeezed.

An invisible leash this time? Or another of Godric’s undisclosed powers?

Gideon swings a pee-your-pants scary glance at his brother. Yep. I was right. Another devil-in-disguise.

Just as I think he’d ram into Godric, and they’d destroy this hall and half its occupants in a clash-of-the-gods-style brawl, Gideon turns to me. His face seamlessly switches back to that knee-melting smile. “Say the word and I’ll deliver the tray right to your seat.”

He’s tossing the ball in my court. He’d defy Godric if I chose his side.

I want to defy Godric, of course, but I also don’t want to give that ruthless charmer what he wants. I won’t be a pawn in their probably eternal familial war.

What decides for me is seeing everyone at my table watching us openly. I don’t want to rejoin them with those two hulking nephilim fighting over me like a bone.

I hold out my hands for the tray, and with a sigh of resignation, Gideon gives it to me. “It was an honor to be of service, for as long as it lasted, Wen White.”

“Dude, quit Wen Whiting me,” I groan.

“I’ll be happy to dispense with formalities. Can I call you Witty? A play on both your names, and character?” His smile widens, heats, as if we’re sharing an intimate joke. “It also goes with Giddy.”

Godric’s rising fury flays me, so I grin up at Gideon. “No one called me that before. I guess it can be yours.”

“It will be my privilege to have a special name for you. And Witty, I am definitely charmed.” He swings a baleful glance at his brother. “Till we meet again, don’t let this boor get away with anything.”

I glare up at the volcanic Godric, before I wink at Gideon. “Oh, don’t worry, Giddy, I never will. See ya.”

With that, I walk away from these paragons, hoping I won’t stumble and fall into my tray.

Back at the table, the blatant expressions coating every face make me wince. They run the full gamut from incredulity to envy to fury.

As soon as I sit across from Sarah in the only seat left vacant, she blinks at my tray, before grinning. “Now that’sa healthy—and orderly—selection!”

“She sure makes us look like pigs, Sar,” Jinny drawls.

Sar? Sar? Sarah told her my pet name for her, too? And she dares call her by it?

“It’s such an inferior selection, if you ask me.” That sullen roommate—who I now notice is a glorious auburn-head—is looking straight at me, not my tray. Her green eyes have been skewering me since I first showed up.

I toss her a visual lance of my own. “It’s a good thing nobody did.”

The glance Sara gives me is pleading. She doesn’t want me to “instigate conflict” with these girls. Can’t she see I didn’t start this?

“Cara Vanderbilt is angel-graced and our fifth roommate, Wen,” Sarah says.

I actually thought she was a nephilim, since she’s almost on par with Ms. Archangelspawn in looks. But from that last name, seems she comes from old money. That would explain the disdain and entitlement.

When neither of us acknowledges Sarah’s introduction, she fills the awkward silence with a winning smile at Cara. Weirdly, it erases that harpy’s scowl.

Okay. It’s official. It’s only me everyone hated on sight.

Am I even surprised? Apart from my epiphany in front of that angelic mirror, it has always been that way.

But before, I thought it was by design. Mine. I always placed myself in front of Sarah, an obnoxious target for abuse. Now I wonder if I would have been one anyway. That like my unique ability to collect Angel Essence, I also squeeze Bitch and Bastard Essence out of everyone.

If so, it always made me a more effective barrier between Sarah and the rest of the world. Others never bothered or even noticed her

But others notice her now. Others who are magical monsters to boot—and they are nice to her. If this doesn’t turn out to be some sort of cruel game.

“What was the hold up with Gideon? And Tory?” That’s Ms. Archangelspawn, addressing me for the first time. She looks confused that one of her kind would spend a second voluntarily around me. “Did you bump into him on purpose?”

I have a dozen “arch” answers to that. But I have to sleep in the same room as this supernatural predator. So I shrug. “He’s the one who intercepted me. Your cousins had this little plan to investigate what I’ve been doing with Godric.”

“What have you been doing with Godric?” It’s Cara again, voice dripping in venom.

That’s also official. Why I’m at the top of her Skewer-And-Barbecue list. Her antipathy has a name: Godric.

I ignore her, mouth already filled with that buttery, aromatic omelet.

“We saw you cut the line with him at the Divining,” Cara persists. “Then he dragged you after him at Orientation, then he brought you to Ariel Hall himself.”

“You sure have been keeping tabs on me,” I mumble around my crammed mouth, spraying bits of omelet all over my tray.

Cara’s aristocratic features twist in disgust. “Anyone will notice a turd if it’s stuck to Godric’s boot.”

Now I’m a turd. The names never stop coming.

I only grunt in response, swallowing as I cram more into my mouth.

“Are you a special-needs recruit he has to cart around? I heard the Academy has to take a quota of those, too, as well as from the inferior Supernatural races, the dregs of Hell and the cursed Blighted.” Cara flicks a disdainful hand towards the fae, Jinny and one of the others, seemingly a blighted not an angel-graced as I assumed.

The platinum-blonde fae isn’t even glancing our way as she tucks into her massive breakfast. The blighted looks crestfallen. But the moment crimson smoke rolls out of Jinny’s nostrils, I cough a laugh that catapults almost everything out of my mouth.

A big lump of half-chewed omelet hurtles across the table, wetly slapping Cara in her right leaf-hued eye.

Cara cries out in outrage and revulsion, rubbing frantically at her eye with a napkin, smearing her exquisite kohl and mascara. I only continue shoveling in food.

I have expected and noticed the unhealthy interest, with Godric dragging me around. But I have to wonder, what is his going story? Or is he leaving everyone stewing in their curiosity and forming outlandish theories?

After retouching her eye—she actually has a mirror, makeup remover and makeup in her backpack, in a supernatural military academy of all places—Cara spears me with pure hostility. “What’s your special-need, Wen? The inability to eat with your mouth closed?”

Nodding, I shove in another mouthful. “And the tendency to spit food with absolute precision across long distances.”

Jinny snorts, Sarah winces, and the graced and blighted pretend we aren’t there. But now the nephilim, and the fae, are watching us like people watched fighting lizards, when Kondar once sent me to steal a rare one from the zoo’s reptile house.

Can’t say I blame them. We must be pathetically entertaining to them, two human females, apparently fighting over the supreme nephilim, who considers us both less than lizards.

Before Cara prods for more answers that would cool her laughably misplaced jealousy, a line of professors stream in, heading for the stage. They are led by Astaroth, and Azazel is nowhere in sight. I almost cough another food-laden laugh at the wave of whimpering relief.

After a hush falls, Astaroth’s voice again comes from all around. “Good morning, cadets. I apologize for interrupting your breakfast, but we needed to have all the first-years in one place for this announcement.”

All around me, the Angel-Graced exchange wary glances that all but groan, “What now?”

After escaping becoming some beast’s breakfast earlier, I can’t bring myself to worry. And then, whatever it is, it can’t be worse than Azazel’s possible death row.

“Yesterday, you perused your first semester schedule,” Astaroth says. “Which is divided between Academic Fundamentals, and Cadet Basic Training. But there will be other classes and training, based on your individual areas of affinity.”

Okay, that’s bad in a way I haven’t expected. I can’t handle more on my plate!

A buzz of dismay shatters the silence. Seems everyone thinks the schedule is packed enough as is, even without my added Godric-sized workload.

Astaroth raises an elegant hand and the droning dies down.

“The additions to your curriculum will commence only after the subject of this announcement takes place. But before making it, I need to give you some background first.” He pauses until everyone is bating their breath before he carries on, “Grace-given powers, whether in the Angel-Graced or the Nephilim, are divided into the broad categories of psychogenic, transmogrifying, corporal and elemental—with thirteen main subdivisions. By your age, most Nephilim have basic powers like heightened strength and senses, as well as flight. Some of them, along with rare Angel-Graced, have an idea what their core powers lean towards. But none can know for sure, or access the majority of those powers, until they undergo Activation.”

Activation? That sounds sinister somehow. But what else is new around here? It’s what I dubbed this Academy, after all.

“After your specific Graces and core powers are unveiled and assessed, you will be assigned to one of the four Hosts of Celestial Academy. Regulus, named after the fixed star of Archangel Raphael, the watcher of the North, Fomalhaut, Archangel Gabriel’s, the watcher of the South, Aldebaran, Archangel Michael’s, the watcher of the East, and Antares, Archangel Uriel’s, the watcher of the West.

“After your assignment, the extra classes and targeted training of Grace Development will commence. In our experience that benefits best from a blend of individualized assignments and continuously optimized practice.”

He looks around, as if waiting for anyone to ask anything.

When no one makes a peep, he continues, “Activation will take place midway through the semester, which is eight weeks from now, in the Imperium Trials.”

Okay, that’s another thing I don’t like the sound of. The word “Trials” brings to mind impossible tests, mortal danger—and a thinning herd.

I can almost swear Astaroth looks straight at me as he concludes, “While there’s no specific way to prepare for the Trials, your very destiny will hinge on your performance.”