Chapter 33

Iburst out giggling uncontrollably. Almost as hard as when the archangels tickled me.

Godric towers over me, viridian eyes darkening to brooding emerald, watching me splutter and snort, until oxygen depletion brings my fit to a wheezing end.

“It’s always something on a cosmic level with you,” I pant. “Isn’t it, Ricky Boy?”

His lips twitch at my latest nickname. I swear he’s fighting the urge to laugh. Which is a mind-boggling concept. That his sense of humor isn’t only macabre, and that I can set it off.

He purses his lips as if to show me I can’t. “You think anything less would make me put up with you?”

But I already saw his unwilling mirth, so I stick my tongue out at him as I rub away tears. “So you risked messing with the laws of the universe, or restarting the stalled End of Days, just to claim me for the Academy? Wow.”

His scowl returns as he watches me wiping wet hands down my uniform. “I had to. I regretfully have use for you.”

Of course. It isn’t as if he cared if I lived. Actually, he’d rather I died.

But no matter his motive, he still saved me. I wonder if this means I owe him a life debt? Or did putting me in danger in the first place cancel it?

Deciding it did, I raise my chin. “And you also stopped them from realizing I was ground-zero for a supernatural tug-of-war. Not that I understand why that’s such a big deal, either.”

“I already told you, you have nothing to mark you for either side.”

“Like I already told you, that’s called being a human. But I see why you consider that stalemate unprecedented. The Divining is always attended by the Angel-Graced and Demon-Blighted, so you only know the results they get. Now you’ve found out what happens with a garden-variety human.”

“You’re no such thing.”

I roll my eyes. “Listen, if this is about this last test, this ‘Shouldn’t Exist’ business, here’s a thought. Maybe in this weird hypnosis ritual you did, we shared some hallucination? I’ve been having my fair share of those since we met, and maybe this time you entered one with me? I sure feel very human.”

His nod is terse. “You are. But the archangels were right. You are also something else.”

“What? And don’t say ‘Inconclusive’!”

“How about ‘Indeterminate’?” As I start to growl, he exhales. “At least to me. To the archangels, they now think you lean towards Darkness.”

“If they think I’m Demon-Blighted now, how did you explain intervening to push me towards the Light? You could have still claimed me, since every kind of creature attends this Academy.”

“This isn’t how it works. Once you’re ‘Divined,’ you’re carted off to the Academy of your affinity.”

“That’s still not the end of the world, no pun intended. You could have gotten me back from Pandemonium Academy.”

He gives an exasperated huff. “The Demon-Blighted who come here are like exchange students, and it’s Pandemonium who chooses them, like we choose the Nephilim or Angel-Graced we send.”

“Couldn’t you have asked for me as one of the exchange students?”

“Asking for someone in specific is also unprecedented. I could get away with the personal interest angle in the Divining, because I just cut the line, not actually assigned you where I want. There are non-negotiable laws about nepotism.”

I cough a laugh. “That demoness told me she’s here because of nepotism.”

“That’s on Pandemonium’s side. Here, the angelic free-will laws extend to a plethora of moronic, self-sabotaging mandates.”

“You really are no angel, are you? You’re all for every sort of intimidation and subterfuge. And I used to think angels were all bad. Turns out they have their good sides, compared to you Nephilim.”

He inclines his majestic head, as if I paid him a compliment. “Anyway, if I broke our Academy’s rules for you, they would have realized there’s something significant about you. They would have turned you inside out, and scoured your mind and soul of every secret you ever harbored, to find out what it is.”

“You mean exactly what you threatened to do to me?”

He ignores the dig. “Once they found out what you can do, losing you to them would have been only the first in a chain reaction of disasters. That’s why the archangels condoned my intervention.”

I gape at him. “You thought of this whole convoluted scenario on the fly? And now you’re straight up lying to your dad and uncles and best friend, huh?”

Raising his haughty chin, he looks at me down his patrician nose. “I never lie. I only don’t tell the whole truth. I’m now keeping a potentially catastrophic part of that specific truth a secret. If you value your life, you’ll keep it, too.”

“Hey, now this has to be a threat…”

His rumble bulldozes over my exclamation. “The archangels sent you to the Divining almost certain you’re not Demon-Blighted. They’re nowhere as accurate as the Divining, but they would have felt something when they scanned you. Especially Raphael, who would have sensed a kernel of the demonic disorder, and also Uriel, as the archangel of seers. It’s why I had to make them think you’re a kind of human they haven’t come across before instead, one Darkness favors, probably because of your yet-unexplained ability.”

“I still don’t get why you won’t tell them the whole truth,” I persist. “They’re archangels, and your family.”

“That’s exactly why I know I can’t tell them. If they find out Light and Darkness fought over you, you would become their most important research project, with all the ensuing attention and danger of exposure. As it is, my own involvement with you is causing enough unhealthy curiosity.”

“How are you explaining that, by the way? Why don’t you tell me, so the next time Gideon interrogates me, I have our stories straight?”

His scowl literally darkens the cavern. “You will tell him nothing, because you will not talk to him again.”

“How about no? I’ll talk to anyone I want.”

Viridian-laced obsidian lightning begins to seethe. “See this? This is the only reason I told you. I couldn’t risk you relating your experience to anyone, but I also couldn’t order you to refrain from doing so. I knew it would only make you defy me. Like you just did, again. But now you know the stakes, and the danger to your own life—and your friend’s by association—you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

That does shut me up. The leash of Sarah’s safety would always be the most vicious power he could exercise over me.

Not that I would have blabbed without a threat to her. I wouldn’t tell Gideon, or anyone else, anything. I never spilled any beans, not even under torture. I just wanted to pull his strings. And Gideon is a massive one. A Nephilim-grade steel cable and fishing line in one. And boy, will I enjoy sinking the hook of that sibling antipathy and watch him thrash on its end.

He exhales and the lightning and darkness recede. “Which brings me back to the Mindscape session. There was no hallucination. It was real, and so are its results.”

I throw my hands up. “But you don’t even know what they mean!”

“What I know is that any human, any being, has more of an affinity for either Light or Darkness, if only by enough for a stalemate to never occur. And it never did. Being indeterminate has never been an option. Which made me make the Nothing/Abomination diagnosis. But I am more right than I feared. After this test…”

As he falls into that stumped silence again, the implications crash in on me.

Until this test, I thought there was something weird about me, but not that big a deal. All of the archangels’ and his cryptic verdicts haven’t really sunk in.

But what if I’m really changing? Because of the Angel Essence, the Divining, exposure to Godric—or all of the above? Or something else completely? Would I start manifesting some power beyond that lame Angel Essence collection? Like the Angel-Graced or Demon-Blighted do, even when I’m neither?

That would be awesome.

I’ll take anything to level the playing field in this land of the supernaturally blessed.

With this thought buoying my spirits, I grin up at him, making his frown darken once more. “Bottom line is, you don’t know what I am, or what I’m turning into. I can’t be categorized. No wonder you hate wasting your time on me.”

He takes a sudden step towards me, as if he’s going to take me by the shoulders.

My whole body surges in anticipation, but he stops a foot away. His struggle, to keep his hands off me, reverberates inside me. And against all reason and self-preservation I find myself begging inwardly.

Touch me. Let me know how it feels.

Visibly struggling not to, he fists his hands at his sides. “I’ve changed my mind. It won’t be a waste. It will be anything but a waste—if I can harness this—thing inside you.”

This thing. Inside me. He’s certain it exists, but can’t even find a name for it. And more than anything, that’s terrifying.

All lightheartedness draining, I gulp. “So you think it’s what makes me potentially dangerous? And potentially useful?”

“I am not sure. How it all connects. I can’t tell what I felt inside you yet. This is unknown territory, so I only have theories. Until I am certain, you already heard me say I’d gladly kill anyone to keep this whole thing contained. And I will.”

I believe him, of course. Anyone but either of us knows about this, and they’re dead. Which means I can never tell Sarah.

This, more than anything else, makes me feel truly alone, for the first time since I met her.

Alone with him.

He blows out a forcible breath, letting me see he isn’t feeling any better about it. “Since no one else can suspect your power, and even more, whatever you have inside you, I’m wary about you entering the Imperium Trials. I have no way of knowing what they’ll expose. That means I need to find a way to exempt you.” That sounds like great news to me. Or it would have if he didn’t add, “If I can’t...”

It’s there in his eyes, the alternative. Something drastic. Like going against the archangels’ directives.

Ending my life would surely solve all his problems.

For suspended moments, I’m lost in him, reading his conflict as if it were my own. And he’s as lost in me. I have no doubt this time.

It’s how I know the moment he reaches a decision.

A decision not to act on what he considers the best course of action. And it isn’t only out of duty, or on account of my potential use.

For some reason that is up for debate, Godric no longer wants to kill me.