22. WEN

Istare at my tray, and my stomach turns. When I would have once sold my soul for half of the healthy delicacies crowding it.

“Eat something, Wen, please.” Sarah leans into me, a gentle hand rubbing my back, the worry in her eyes and voice now ever-present.

Looking up, I realize we’re alone at the table. The others have finished breakfast and left. She stayed behind, since her first class is at 9am. I don’t think she would have left me even if it made her miss a class. Her mother-hen persona has been taking her over.

I plaster a smile on, suspecting it looks as sickened as I feel. “I did eat. You just didn’t notice while you demolished your massive breakfast, you glutton.”

She levels me with an admonishing glance. “You ate two slices of grapefruit.”

Yeah. The sour bitterness helped get them down, sort of reflecting how I feel. I shrug. “I’m just not hungry now. I’ll eat later at lunch.”

That only makes the anxiety in her eyes flare. “That’s what you said yesterday at breakfast, then at lunch, and you still didn’t eat at dinner. You’ve been doing this ‘I’ll eat later’ for days now, and the later never comes.”

“Don’t exaggerate. I eat.”

“Nowhere near enough.”

“I don’t need as much food now I’m not training …” I let my voice trail off so I don’t say with Godric. I force a brighter smile on my lips before they tremble. “But I did eat a five-cheese pizza at dinner.”

“You ate a slice, and that was all you ate.”

Yeah. I had a moment of defiance as I surveyed my dinner tray with its extra kale, and decided to shove something forbidden past the barrier of constant nausea.

I threw that slice up an hour later.

Bile rises in my throat again at the sight of the delicious breakfast selection Godric had approved.

I gulp it down and smirk at her. “Quit tracking my food, Sar.”

“I should have done more than that, sooner. You’re looking sicker by the day, Wen.”

“I’m fine. So if you’re done, let’s go. We can walk a bit before you head to class.”

As I start to get up, her hand catches my forearm, keeping me in place. I don’t think I could shake her off if I tried. She’s getting stronger by the day, like Godric said …

Godric. It’s been sixteen days since he disappeared. And I wish I’m exaggerating when I say they feel longer and more torturous than my sixteen years as a Demon-Owned.

As if she heard my thoughts, like always, Sarah whispers, “Godric will come back, Wen.”

“There’s no reason to think he will” I mumble.

“The only reason you need is knowing he’s the most powerful nephilim in history.”

“Yeah, and Zinimar was the immortal King of the Eastern Demon Empire who had powers out the wazoo. And he was murdered.”

Sarah’s eyes round with shock. I haven’t shared that fear with her, and she hasn’t even considered it a possibility.

She curls a hand over my forearm. “Oh, Wen, don’t torture yourself with such ideas.”

I shrug one shoulder listlessly. “It’s giving me something to do.”

“If that was even a worry, Lorcan wouldn’t have been chill about Godric’s absence!”

“Lorcan stopped being chill about it over a week ago. He was used to Godric taking off every now and then without a word, and remaining radio silent. But he said his disappearances never happened at critical times, or lasted past a week. He left the Academy saying he’d turn the world upside down looking for him. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Her face drains of color. “That’s why I haven’t seen him for days.” She bites her lip, narrowing her eyes, as if adjusting to the change in perspective. “Has he involved the Guard?”

I shake my head. “He said he won’t. Not before he exhausts all of Godric’s possible haunts. Something about anatomy rearrangement if he exposes any needlessly.”

Sarah digests this in silence, her gaze roving over me. I know she’s doing her best not to wince. Death warmed over has nothing on me. Sort of appropriate, when it’s over Death Jr. himself.

She sits up, as if coming to a decision. “Okay, now you have Godric’s second-in-command and best friend looking for him, you can stop driving yourself crazy, and focus on yourself a bit. You wouldn’t want Godric to find you’ve undone all his hard work when he comes back, now would you?”

A ragged sigh escapes me. “If he comes back.”

She sits back stiffly. “That’s it. No more tip-toeing around your morbid mindset. You’ll come with me to the Sanatorium right now. You look worse than you ever did when you were regularly semi-starved, flogged and worked to the bone. This happened too fast, so being worried sick can’t be the reason behind it. There has to be something else.”

I stare at her, my throat closing. The need to tell her everything is overwhelming. The only reason it wasn’t before, was because I had Godric to share my secrets and worries with. Now he’s no longer there, bearing that burden alone is joining everything else in crushing me.

But like everything he ever told me, Godric’s warning, about never telling her what I can do, what I have inside me, is omnipresent in my mind. The mind that not even Jinny, who can literally enter it, can read. From all evidence, it’s impenetrable.

But there’s no reason to believe Sarah’s is. And if it’s invaded while it contains my secrets, there’s no end to the deadly dangers it would expose her to.

Unable to say any of that, I shrug again. “There’s nothing else.”

“If you’re so sure, where’s the harm in excluding underlying medical problems? You’re the only one who didn’t get a full checkup since the Trials.” She leans closer, voice lowering so much I have to lip read her. She’s not taking chances with any super-hearing ears. “Who knows what the consequences of taking on a black hole are? This is uncharted territory and you might have sustained some slow-progressing damage. Like a lingering infection, or internal bleeding, or even radiation sickness. If they find anything, it could still be an easy fix. But if you let it go any longer, it might become serious.”

I look away, wishing I can convince her to stop tormenting herself over me, that there’s nothing for her to fix.

From everything I feel and have gathered, my condition is a complex syndrome. Beside the dismantling emotional components, beside the worry, the dread, and the maddening not knowing, there are so many intensifying elements. They’re all intertwined within my expanded perceptions, the time distortion, and the severed connection.

And then there’s the void.

There. I’ve finally thought it. I’ve been avoiding confronting myself with it, as if thinking it would make it real.

But it is real. Without his ongoing training, on both the physical and psychic levels, I’m no longer keeping it in check. And without his presence, his very being warding it off, it’s starting to poison me. I actually think it’s trying to—absorb me.

And without him, I don’t know if I can stop it.

If I can’t, I should tell Sarah about it. If the void ends up claiming me, I’d be no more, but so should the danger to her if she knew about it. I shouldn’t leave her in the dark, must let her know why she might lose her best friend, so uncertainty wouldn’t prey on her forever, like it’s doing to me over Godric.

The urge to tell her now is almost overpowering. But only one thing stops me. The hope that hasn’t died yet. Because I haven’t seen proof that Godric is no more.

If I get that proof, and I become certain I won’t survive losing him, because of all of the above, I’ll tell her.

But I won’t make her suffer prematurely.

For now, I have to make her feel like she’s not helplessly watching me waste away. She’s always tried everything she can to make my life better. I have to let her feel she still can.

I quirk my lips at her, hoping to lighten the mood. “If I get checked up, will you get off my case?”

Her lips wobble on a smile, but her eyes become even sadder. She knows me too well.

It makes me feel even worse that I’m doing this to her, and that I can’t stop it. Suffering alongside me has wilted her vitality, too, and put out her enthusiasm for this new life she loves …

A massive shadow falls over us, etching the outline of wings on the table. I almost keel over into my omelet.

Godric.

I swing around so hard, I would have fallen off my chair if Sarah hadn’t caught my flailing body. My eyes tear up to his face …

Not his face. Not hisface.

It’s some angel I haven’t seen before. His uniform proclaims him one of the Cadre, Azazel’s personal guard. Two more of his Pax Vis, the Academy’s peacekeeping force, stand respectful steps behind.

The letdown is so brutal, the world spins in a vortex of nausea.

“On your feet, cadet.”

Vision swimming in the bitter tears of disappointment, I struggle to my feet. Worst-case scenarios careen in my mind, starring the dozen infractions I’ve committed in my search for Godric.

Among the highlights was my attempt to scale Raguel Tower, using equipment I “borrowed” from Lycurgus Arena, and a concealment potion I swiped from Astaroth’s lab. My plan was to collect any traces of Godric from his quarters, to track him down with.

I got halfway up before the potion fizzled out, and my descent was hasty, and messy. Next day the Academy was buzzing with tales of the vandal who dared deface the sacred tower.

This escapade alone carries the hefty tags of theft, trespassing, destruction of property, attempted breaking and entry, and attempted robbery. Any angel prosecutor worth his salt would add a dozen more charges to the bill.

Then there was the summoning spell I cast. Which turned out to be a dud, or Godric wasn’t in this realm to be summoned. I got it, in a convoluted transaction like my previous dealings, from a Third-Year mage, in exchange for a hit of Angelescence.

The charges of that stunt would start with the practice of forbidden magic, the practice of magic at all without Faculty permission and supervision, and end with the sale of drugs. If it’s found out what the drug was, that would be a whole new level of shit creek I’d be traveling.

“Cadet White, you are hereby summoned by Azazel The Redeemer, Commander of the Insurrection, Lord of the Rebels, and King of the Elite Fallen. You will appear before His Grace and his subordinates of the Grace Development Congress.”

My jaw drops as I gape up at them.

They’re not here to arrest me. They’re here to take me to my curriculum assignment.

In the past two weeks, every single cadet has gone before Azazel and said Congress, and been assigned their special training curriculum. All but me.

At first, I thought it was taking them longer to set up my training since I’m the only Null in the Academy. With no Nulls around for thousands of years, they must have needed to hit the tomes to research what to do with me.

But before he left, Lorcan said it was on account of Godric making it clear he would veto any decisions that didn’t align with his vision for my training. They must have been waiting for him to return to make their choices, since once finalized, a grace development curriculum can’t be changed.

If they’re summoning me now, it means they’ve given up on his return.

It feels as if they’re declaring him dead.

The world dims as the void beckons to me, tempting me with the embrace of its oblivion.

It will claim me anyway without him around. So why wait? Why not let it take me now …

The fallen takes a menacing step closer, forcing my focus away from its siren call. “If you attempt any action akin to the attack you perpetrated upon our brother during the Amulet Ceremony, we are authorized to use any level of force to stop you.”

His eager viciousness is loud and clear. I can all but see the subtitles appear on his broad chest.

We’ll force you to attempt such an action, then we’ll take utmost pleasure in tearing you apart.