21. WEN

Instead of one of the austere librarians who roam the Metatron Library like vengeful spirits, or a member of the seraph’s radical worshippers, my target is—a ghost.

Or it would be, if ghosts wore First-Year uniforms, and looked a hundred-percent solid.

That doesn’t preclude her being some lingering remnant of a deceased cadet. Anything is possible around here. Especially since she looks as if she stepped out of a silent movie.

If not for seeing my own hands in color, I would have thought the lighting was responsible for her lack of pigment. But she is black and white. Her complexion is the color of milk, while her hair, eyes and lips are the obsidian of outer space.

I still think she’s alive, if only because I’m certain I’ve seen her before. In real life. I just can’t place her with my heart almost dissolving in my chest with relief.

Though, maybe I shouldn’t be relieved. Maybe she’ll run to report me. Outside of your Unitas, the common wisdom is that we’re expected to tittle-tattle on our fellow cadets for points. Which still makes option B my method of choice.

Problem is, I don’t see her Life Essence, so dropping her is out. I have to pick one of the fibs I would have told anyone with authority, or just beg or bribe her so she wouldn’t tell on me?—

Everything in my mind seizes up as she charges me.

In one slow blink of shock she’s in my face, hands reaching out.

Just as I think she is a vengeful spirit or a Metatron Maniac, and she’ll snatch my soul or scratch my eyes out, she grabs the book from my numb fingers.

Before I can react, she drops to the ground, spreading her legs like a gymnast about to stretch, and slams the book between them.

Stunned, I stare down at her as she tries to force it open. Before I can pounce on her, and pry the book from her mauling efforts, she looks up, and the absolute darkness of her gaze slams into mine.

The contrast of her coloring is so stark, so unique, it finally jogs my memory. The memory that’s clearly disintegrating. I can’t believe I didn’t remember where I’ve seen such a distinctive face. It was less than an hour ago, when she almost intercepted me outside Ariel Hall.

Not only that, but she sits across from me during breakfast at the adjacent table. Though I could have sworn that seat used to be occupied by a different girl before the Trials. Maybe her Grace manifestations gave her some unusual chameleon powers, and she used them to turn herself into this Goth Girl version.

Who the fucking Heaven knows. I only care that she caught me in the act.

At least she doesn’t seem in a rush to report me. But she still has that laser focus trained on me, like when she approached me earlier. I evaded her, since I wasn’t in any hurry to have another cadet gift me with their kind labels. “Psycho Bitch” and “Leash Junkie” have become favorites. I guess I’ve been giving very convincing simulations of being both while investigating Godric’s disappearance.

“Do you know why this thing won’t open?” she asks, her voice sweet and forceful all at once. I open my mouth, but she doesn’t wait for an answer. “Girl, you’re one slippery sucker. You had me running after you all the way from the mess hall while you jumped through the nodes like the fuzz were on your tail. You almost shook me a few times before I caught up with you at the Library gates. As soon as I cleared the tagging, I ran to catch up with you, and you kept jumping from one track to the next like you’re a level-twelve in a four-dimensional video game.” She shakes her angel-wings; the double high-ponytails favored by so many angel–graced females, and some males. “It was such fun trying to keep up with you!”

I blink, her barrage making no sense in my garbled mind. “Uh—why exactly were you trying to catch up with me?”

Grinning up at me, she braces her elbows on the book, spreading her legs past the horizontal mark. The unnatural position she makes look so natural, hits me with untimely envy. I’ve gotten exponentially more flexible under Godric’s whip, but this girl makes joints look optional.

The sight of her white teeth flashing between glossy, black lips also assails me with another ill-timed urge—to ask if that’s a perfect lipstick, or her actual lip color. If it’s the latter, it’s one of the coolest physical traits I’ve ever seen.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you since Jophiel’s lecture, when you were the only who dared questions her. That was actually the second day I was here. Though it feels like forever, I’ve only been here twelve days!”

This means she arrived after the Trials. Which also means she didn’t go through them. It was a different girl in the seat across from me before that.

“I didn’t realize cadets can join up mid-year.”

Her smile dims. “They can’t, but it was a whole mess of events in my case. I was sick for over a year leading up to the Divination, so was considered ineligible to attend it. It was only a week afterward that I was given a clean bill of health, so they gave me a special solo event—and I was deemed Demon-Blighted! I was crushed. Crushed I tell you, especially when I was shipped off to Pandemonium. I really thought my life was over. I wanted it to be over. Then thirteen days ago, one of the professors kept me after class to tell me I was being transferred to Celestial Academy. I didn’t even let him explain how or why, just grabbed my draft papers and ran all the way here. Well, not exactly, but I did run all across campus, and around the dorm packing my stuff then back to where an angel was picking me up to fly me here—but you get my drift. Then when I arrived, disaster struck again, and I was told I had no place anywhere, since every Unitas was already five strong. I was kept in the processing offices of Raziel Complex overnight, and I expected to be shipped back to Pandemonium, but in the morning I was told there was a clerical error and that one Unitas was missing its fifth member, who was lost during the Imperium Trials. And oh my fucking angels, I can’t begin to describe the sheer joy. Not that the poor girl was lost in the Trials, but that I got to stay! My Unitas were dicks at first, about me being Blighted, and I guess for replacing their team member, but they’re warming up to me and I can’t believe I’m here. But you asked me why I wanted to talk to you?—”

I raise both hands, feeling faint, as if I’m the one who’s been talking non-stop on one lungful of air. “Stop. Please. I appreciate the info…” I barely hold back “dump.” I’m not dissing the first person who volunteered information about themselves, and actually wants to talk to me. “But tell me more once we’re out of here, after I put this book back where it belongs?—”

She cuts me off, curiosity sparkling in her night-sky eyes. “How did you take it in the first place? I was told there is no checking out books under any circumstances, and that anyone who tries to smuggle any out are severely punished—like that Third-Year Kade guy who thought he could get away with ripping out the page he needed. Kylee swears he’s in some dungeon and will remain there for the remaining semesters, and will have to redo the whole year. And that’s for a damn page. But I saw you expanding it. Is that how you smuggled it out? Can you do that to any book? Or anything else? And how did you read it if it won’t open? Can you open it? Did you read it?”

Finally realizing what Godric feels—felt—when I deluged him in questions, I swoop down to clamp a hand over her running mouth. “It’s why I’m here. I couldn’t read it and I must, since it might contain vital info. Now I need to try to open it …”

“So it’s not opening for you, either?” she mumbles behind my hand as she fumbles with the book. “Here, let me try again—ouch! That thing bit me!”

I gape in horror as her blood trickles down to smear the locking mechanism, before I realize she might have saved me from another vicious bite. At least until I see that the lock isn’t opening.

It might be because she’s demon-blighted. Or it requires specific types of blood. Or could it only want mine?

The implications revolve in my head as she whips tissues from her backpack and presses them to the bleeding bite. “Is this why you couldn’t open it? Because it bites? Even when it was shrunk? You didn’t tell me how you shrank it? Do you have a shrinking Grace?”

Still not sure how she’d react if I snap at her, I try to humor her. “It shrank on its own. I tried everything to reverse the magic so I could read it, and nothing worked. Then just after I passed that tagging station, it started growing, and that’s why I was running like a bat out of Hell before it popped out of my chest.”

Realization dawns over her ultra-expressive face. “Ugh, I think I might be the reason for that.” I open my mouth to ask, but I shouldn’t have bothered. I don’t think I ever have to worry about her explaining herself. “One of my Blights is tampering with magical spells, sometimes augmenting them, and sometimes reversing them. It’s very unpredictable so far, totally out of my control, and it only activates when I’m excited or agitated.”

Which in her case could be all the time.

Then another thought hits me. “But—how is your power activated at all if you didn’t attend the Imperium Trials?”

“Oh, I attended the Infernal Gambit at Pandemonium, and it serves the same purpose. They basically tossed us into the Pit, and waited to see if we climbed up. Those who didn’t get activated, or couldn’t handle it when they were—well, a couple hundred didn’t drag themselves over the Rim. And let me tell you, there was no teamwork there like with the Unitae here. It was every being for themselves.”

“That sounds even more awful than the Trials.”

“It was actually very exciting—at least, once I made it out. I’ll tell you all about it later. And you gotta tell me everything about your Trials.”

”Uh, we’re not allowed to share anything about our experiences.”

“Ugh, that’s a bummer! I was hoping to live vicariously through you, so I can feel I didn’t miss much while being tortured in Pandemonium. Oh, well. I’ve got more than enough shit to share on my end. Demons want us to share our experiences. They love letting everyone know what total dirtbag pervs they are.”

I scoff. “You’re preaching to the choir. Demon-Owned here.”

Her eyes round to double their size, and I swear her irises do the same. “You’re shitting me! No, of course you’re not. No one would joke about that. And here I was whining about being in Pandemonium for three months, and getting demonic powers while at it, when you were enslaved by a demon, when you had no access to your Angel-Graced powers.”

“That’s okay. There was no way you could have known?—”

“I would have, if I didn’t let my Unitas talk me into not talking to you till today. But it was all ‘We don’t talk to thatUnitas.’”

“Great. Just what I wanted to have confirmed. That my Unitas are being blacklisted because of me.”

“Actually, it’s because of Cara.”

I do a double take. That was totally out of left field. “Cara? Why?”

“Oh, you know, because she’s one of the Vanderbilts.”

In any other situation, it would have been a relief that I’m not the reason my Unitas are being shunned, and that it’s on account of Curmudgeon Cara instead. But neither my curiosity nor pettiness make the slightest twitch. Nothing exists inside me right now but the need to find Godric.

But I bet this girl will elaborate without being asked, and I don’t have time or energy to court her favor anymore.

Fuck it. Let her do whatever she pleases.

“Wait until I tell you what they told me about her family. You’ll want the gory deets …”

I dive down for the tome she’s using as a yoga block. “The only thing I want is this book back, before we trip up some surveillance system, and we both end up keeping poor Kade company in his dungeon.”

Thankfully, that stems her verbal diarrhea as she lets me retrieve the book, giving me two thumbs up.

Turning away to the alcove, I stride to the golden energy globe that’s now opaque, hiding the pedestal within—if it’s still inside.

Gingerly, I reach out and touch it. Like last time, it gives me that offended zap, before it dissolves.

Shuddering with relief at finding the pedestal still in place, I rush inside. Once the book is hovering on top of it, something occurs to me.

I turn to her, find her standing outside the alcove, her energy popping with excitement. “You probably shouldn’t be here, uh …”

“Matilda,” she supplies, nodding vigorously. “Say no more. I’ll take my blighted ass away so whatever magic powers the book works. I’m better suited to the role of lookout in this BE, anyway.”

BE, huh? Maybe I’ll ask later if she’s a fellow former thief. “Please, just leave. If anyone comes along, no need for both of us to get caught.”

She waves me off. “You need me to watch your back. If anyone comes, I’ll talk until they run away. Don’t worry. Just do your thing.”

Gratefulness to this strange stranger wobbles on my lips as I watch her skip away. Once I consider her far enough, I turn back to the tome.

It performs the biting, blood-letting ritual again, harder than last time. I still don’t breathe until the intertwining finger-like lock opens.

So did it want my blood in specific? Or would it only open once it was in this spot?

Not that I care. Only that I can read more of it.

In a few seconds, I realize that I can’t. The auto-translation function isn’t kicking in. It’s either that girl’s—Matilda’s blight nullified its magic altogether, or—I don’t know what else it could be. But I can only do one thing right now.

Damning the Academy again for deactivating our tablets and phones within the Library, stopping us from taking photos of the books, I flip the pages to the part that had Godric’s story. I take out my notebook and rush to transcribe as much of the Angelic script as I can.

It’s over twenty pages later when my hand cramps. I leaf through with my other one, until I come across pages occupied wholly by single, large symbols.

One of them is Godric’s tattoo.

Heart skipping beats, I feverishly copy it. I have no idea how it would help me, but I just need to have it. If I never see him again, I’d at least have this?—

“I think I’m lost.”

My thoughts stall as Matilda’s very loud voice reaches me. She’s warning me.

Slamming the book shut, I look at it for one more regretful second before I rush away. The energy field reforms as soon as I exit the alcove.

Keeping close to the walls, I slink towards her voice as she continues talking someone’s ears off.

“You seem to know where you are. Can you help me navigate out of this place? I need to research for my upcoming Transcendence Training class. Do you know where that section is? I need to get there at once, since I only have one hour left here, and the assignment will probably take two.”

When I hear no answer, I know she has succeeded in sending whoever it was on the run.

I wait a bit more before she calls out, “Coast is clear!”

Rushing toward her, I feel the path that was emblazoned on my mind fading. I need to get us out before it does. Grabbing her hand, I drag her behind me. She runs after me, whooping every time I perform a complex maneuver within the maze of paths.

Once we’re back in the distributing zone, we pretend to be sedate library patrons until we’re outside. She waits until we’re a hundred feet from the gates before she turns to me with an elated grin.

“That was awesome …” Her voice fades and her face falls. She must have read it on mine that I don’t think anything in existence can ever be again. She puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t find what you need?”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t read any of it. I transcribed what I could, but I don’t know if it will be of any use.”

She hurries beside me, looking up the couple of inches between us with a grimace. “Ugh, I’m sorry, Wen.”

”You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Matilda?—”

She waves her hands frantically. “No, no, I was just introducing myself. No one ever called me by my full name, except in Pandemonium. Everyone calls me whatever they think my name should be shortened to. My mom calls me Tilda, dad calls me Tilly and my friends in school called me DeeDee—and my brothers, the dickheads, call me Dilda.”

I stare at her for dejected seconds before I exhale. “That’s your second singing to the choir moment. As a Gwendolyn, I’ve suffered this identity crisis, until Sarah called me Wen the first day we met, and it became my name.”

Her grin returns in full force. “That’s actually the best way to get a name. Let a new friend who just met you, but likes you already, give you the name that suits you, without any preconceived notions. What would you call me? Whatever you choose, will be my name.”

My mouth hangs open before I shake my head. “No way. That’s too huge a responsibility.”

She elbows me gently. “C’mon, Wen. I hate what everyone calls me. And I heard you and the demon in your Unitas volleying names at each other. You’re damn good.”

“At insults. Or so I thought. ‘The demon’ is trouncing me in that department.”

“Nah. I heard you call the Praetor Godawful on my first day here. That alone enters you into the Celestial Name-Calling Hall of Fame. Now, give me a name.”

My despondency deepens at his mention, and I exhale. “I can’t.” She only makes a hurrying motion. I groan. “What if you hate it?”

“I won’t.” I open my mouth to object, and she talks over me. “Do you see me as a Tilda? Or a DeeDee?”

“Uh, actually …”

“There you go.” She mimes a mic with her hand, shoving it in my face. “Go ahead, give us a name.”

“Uh, okay. Just promise me if you don’t like it?—”

“I’ll like it. It can never be worse than Dilda.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that one. Okay, let me think?—”

She makes a frantic flutter with both hands. “Don’t think! Go with your gut. What does it tell you when you look at me?”

I scrunch my nose. “Uh—maybe Tia?”

Her eyes widen, then a slow smile spreads over her amazing black lips. “That’s fucking genius.”

“Though …”

She perks up. “Yes? You thought of a more suitable name. I know you did.”

“Not really. Or at least, just as suitable in my head.”

“Tell me!”

“Since I’m partial to one syllable nicknames, I’m thinking Matt?—”

She jumps and claps. “Matt! Yes. Call me Matt from now on.”

I can’t help but gape at her, wondering where she finds such ease, such zest. Where anyone finds the will to live anymore.

She winces, as if in response to the surge of misery radiating from me. “I’m an insensitive fool. Here I am jumping up and down when you’re not okay. I’m sorry, Wen.”

I wave her apology off. “You’re not the reason I’m not okay.”

After that, we fall silent until we approach the first node back to the main campus zone.

Before we step into it, she looks at me with sadness blossoming in her dark eyes. “What were you looking for?”

Tears fill my eyes and I look away, feeling my insides compressing, as if trying to crush my organs. “Something irreplaceable. Something I’m afraid I might never find again.”