25. WEN

“Ithought you learned your lesson the first time, Cadet White.”

Azazel’s voice assails me as I enter the vast chamber, a surround sound of the sublime and the macabre. The lyrical sweetness only amplifies its sickening horror as it seems to come from the depths of eternity and inside of my head at once.

That Celestial slimeball is doing it on purpose. He can sound normal, but doesn’t waste a chance to remind everyone of his power, or that we’re all subject to his insane whims.

Not that I think he’s unstable. That fallen piece of shit is as strategic as they come. The fact that he hadn’t mutilated all of us, and left those he had fully functioning attests to that. But making everyone think he’s erratic is more effective in keeping them subjugated, dreading his next random attack.

His intimidation no longer works on me. Maybe because I’ve been exposed to a bigger bad, The Fallen himself. Or because I’ve faced a black hole and touched the void. Or because I now might have a fighting chance against someone at his level.

My best bet is it’s because Godric is gone, and I’ve gone mad.

Whatever it is, I don’t bother to answer Azazel. I don’t even look at him, my gaze roving the chamber instead.

It’s of almost Celestial Court proportions and grandeur, with thirteen, hundred-foot statues of archangels surrounding its mind-boggling expanse. I can make out the six I met.

The walls and ceiling are spread in frescos of Celestial scenes and battles. The floor is that living marble material, inlaid in morphing patterns, all made of infinite combinations of the Grace runes.

Guess it’s true what I’ve heard about this place, that it’s imbued with every variation of Grace to have ever existed. It’s supposed to act as an adjuvant to the Amulets’ verdict, guiding the Grace Development Congress’s decision for every cadet’s assignments.

I’m not clear on the process, and I don’t care to be. I only care that I won’t recognize a wrong assignment if given one. Godric gave me no idea what to look out for. Which means he had no doubt he’d be here to adjust the proceedings to his liking. Which is more proof that his disappearance was out of his control.

I don’t realize I’ve stopped until Astaroth’s calm voice penetrates the cacophony inside my skull.

“Proceed, Cadet White.”

I raise my eyes and find myself steps away from a circular platform, dead center before the Congress, who sit fifty feet away behind an elevated, ornate judge’s bench.

Gritting my teeth, I close the distance to the platform, step on it, grab the semi-circular, golden railing, and raise my gaze to them.

Azazel’s massive form centers the assembly, his pristine-white wings dominating the others flanking him on either side. Six of our professors; two angels, one of them Zerachiel, two nephilim whose names I don’t remember, Zachary Caine, the Academy’s senior angel-graced, and Astaroth.

As my eyes finally target him, his Heavenly light intensifies on more levels than the visible, framing him and washing the others out.

It’s a relief to find confirmation. That there’s no trace of my dread of him. There’s only disgust now. Even when looking at him, no one could possibly find a reason for it.

For the thousandth time, I wonder how so much evil can hide behind such a gorgeous exterior.

Today he’s better groomed than I’ve ever seen him, his unkempt A-lister look gone. The thick vitality of his hair is no longer a tangled riot around his shoulders, but a sleek curtain that gleams gold with cleanliness for a change. His scruffy two-day beard has given way to clean-shaven perfection. He even seems younger. Instead of the early forties look he usually sports, his new one is a few years older than Godric’s apparent thirty. He looks fresh, virile—and jovial.

It makes me hate him even more.

“You have committed the transgression of being late, and the sin of making me wait,” Azazel says, his pure blue eyes dancing with the viciousness of a psycho anticipating a leisurely torture session. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

I stare at him as his light dims, and consider not answering him. But Lorcan told me to do what Godric would. He wouldn’t let him get away with talking to him that way.

I shove my hands into my pockets and shrug. “Not really. But it can’t be good for you to spend eternity taking yourself so seriously. Chill, dude. Be grateful I’m here at all.”

His eyes widen and his grin judders like a flame in the wind.

Yep. I’ve done it. I’ve stunned him.

A frown of disbelief knits his perfect eyebrows. “If I didn’t believe it’s impossible, I’d think you were being a smartass, cadet.”

“Guess it depends on what that is. I never understood what the ass refers to—animal or body part.” I cock my head at him. “What do you think? If it’s the latter, the kind you can kiss, yeah, I guess I am.”

This wipes the uncertainty from his face, and injects his expression with rage. I would have found it piss-my-pants terrifying before. Now I feel nothing. I’m drowning in fathoms of numbness.

His wings rise, their feathers spreading, sharpening. “You really haven’t learned your lesson.”

“Which lesson was that?” I shrug again. “If you were a better teacher, I probably would have learned it. Care to refresh my memory?”

“With pleasure, you mortal maggot,” he hisses as his lips draw back to reveal elongating, blackening teeth.

Here we go. Another metamorphosis into the monster that he really is.

“If I may, Azazel,” Astaroth speaks up, as refined and level-headed as always, as if that supernatural bully isn’t about to turn into a nightmare beside him. “I request to bring this session to order.”

Azazel turns to him, eyes solid black now. “Why don’t you just request a new dose of discipline, demon dung? Interrupt me again, and I will deliver it before your dipshit colleagues. I’ll film it and post it online.”

Astaroth inclines his head as he arranges the parchments before him in ultimate equanimity. “Acknowledged. But as always, my actions are in your service. I request that you disregard Cadet White’s inappropriate behavior, and submit that it is wholly due to recent developments. The unearthing of her Null powers is undoubtedly behind her shocking deterioration. She’s evidently unsound of body and mind. And at the rate of her decline, I submit it would be advantageous to keep this session brief, so we can provide her with a rapid and restoring assignment.”

As I think Azazel will make good on his threat, go berserk and stomp on Astaroth’s organs, the fallen reverts to his angelic state.

He even breaks out a cheery smile as he waves at Astaroth. “You have your uses at times, Rot. Go ahead, you brimstone-brain.”

Without any indication of his response to Azazel’s abuse, as usual, Astaroth rises and descends from the bench. In seconds, he has come to stand before me, immaculate in one of his three-piece suits.

He meets my eyes, tall enough to be on my same level on the platform. Though he keeps his gaze empty, I can see something moving beneath the surface of his impassive poise. I’m in no condition to tell what it is.

He reaches into his gray silk jacket, producing the Angel Amulet I charred, and holds it up by its chain for the others to see, before turning back to me.

His thick, jet-black hair gleams in the chamber’s eerie light as he tilts his head, asking my permission. I nod, and he puts it over my head.

The moment the blackened, disfigured disc rests on my chest, it crackles and crunches, distorting further, as if collapsing under monstrous gravity. Astaroth rushes to remove it, his obsidian gaze flaring with fascination, and something like—realization?

Whatever it is, it’s gone in the next second and he walks away, stopping halfway between me and the others. He turns sideways, his posture that of an attorney about to deliver his argument.

“This was to demonstrate, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the Amulet is fully drained and destroyed. And that Cadet White is the first Null to exist in millennia. Thus, neither the Amulet, nor this hallowed chamber can assist in determining her assignments. Her future training and education will depend solely on what we gleaned from the historical records and the Codex Celestia.”

He pauses, and Azazel flicks him a churlish gesture to continue.

Astaroth inclines his head at him, then at the rest. “Her prerequisite curriculum must initially focus on one goal; that of expeditious control. Once her mortal form is efficiently protected against the ravages of her power, then the assessment of its level, followed by its development and utilization can begin. I urge you to exercise every caution in your choices, considering our deficient knowledge of the nature of her abilities, as well as our lack of experience in managing her kind.” He pauses before sweeping an arm at the bench. “With that firmly in mind, esteemed colleagues, please put forth your proposals.”

With solemn nods, the five other professors consult their prepared material. All but Azazel. He doesn’t even glance at the tome he has open before him.

I zone out on my feet, until Azazel exhales, and causes a storm like the one he terrorized us with on our first day at the Academy. He would have blown me off my feet if I hadn’t clung to the railing with all I had left.

Astaroth is the only one unaffected, standing there with not one hair moving as the others struggle to one degree or another.

After the mini hurricane dies down, the others rearrange their scattered materials, behaving as if nothing happened. They must be used, and resigned, to Azazel’s bully tactics.

Astaroth gives a calm nod, and Zerachiel, who’s sitting on Azazel’s other side, pushes forward an obelisk-shaped onyx. “I propose Celestial Meditation.”

Meditation? Me? I can’t quiet my mind for ten seconds.

But it might be worse if I could. If I try to empty my mind now, I’ll probably implode. And maybe take the whole Academy with me into the void.

The angel on the far right walks behind everyone to place a star-shaped, translucent crystal beside his colleague’s offering. Once he’s back in his seat, he says, “Seraphic Kinesis.”

“Astral Forces.” The male nephilim by his side adds a multi-faceted, iridescent crystal.

The female nephilim at the far left adds conjoint pyramids made from three different, fused stones. As she sits back down, she says, “Inter-Realm Manifestation.”

“Celestial Physics,” Professor Caine says, rolling forward a sphere that looks like a miniature universe.

Astaroth produces a palm-sized gleaming circle that looks like a panther’s eye, levitating it to join the others’ tokens as he intones, “Transcendence Training.”

They all turn their gazes to Azazel, who has remained staring at me throughout, leaving me in no doubt he wants to take me apart. And not in the frenzied, gory way he would have killed Jinny.

Oh, no. Me he’d dismantle slowly, meticulously, inventively. He hungers for vengeance, and for something else. From his reptilian stare, he’s probably contemplating eating me, and my power to yank Life Essence out of angels. If he does, he wouldn’t rush it.

The one thing stopping him is probably Godric’s Requiem Concordia. I bet he’s certain he’d find a way to circumvent it. If Godric is gone, he wouldn’t have to bother. It would dissolve on its own.

Apart from expecting my future dissection at that Celestial serial killer’s hands, I find his silence weird. I thought he’d be the one to dictate my curriculum, and terrorize the others into signing off on it.

What’s his game here?

Azazel looks around and scoffs. “Oh, you were expecting me to divulge my own plans for Cadet White? You’ve always been such an insipid, dumb lot. But you made surprisingly sound choices, and I’ll allow you to play with her—when I’m not working her mortality-infested ass to her null-infused bones.”

The others make no response, and a shiver of foreboding runs down my spine.

What the fucking Heaven and Hell does that mean?

His gaze turns to me, and suddenly I’m terrified. Not of him, but of the suspicion that drenches me.

Azazel watches me with manic relish as he nods. “Yes, my mortal maggot—I will be your new mentor.”