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PART I
THE DEVIL AND THE WHITE LILY
1
Being human in Angelthene felt a lot like walking into a party you weren’t invited to, only there was no end to that party, no quick escape by simply walking out the door.
Loren Calla had spent twenty years getting used to that feeling. As one of the only human students at Angelthene Academy for Magic, the party truly never ended. The whispers were constant, chasing her down every hallway and into every classroom. Balled-up sheets of paper were forever thrown at the back of her head. Students made it their daily goal to trip or bodycheck her into rows of lockers. Sure, there was the odd time when she made it through a whole school day without being the victim to any of these things, but those days were rare. And when it wasn’t whispers, paper cannon balls, or feet swept out to trip her, her problems usually involved trying not to be killed by one of the magical beings that made Angelthene such a dangerous place.
Whispers, paper cannon balls, and feet were far better forms of conflict than bullets, teeth, and claws. Bullies, she could handle. Bullies, she had a high chance of surviving, as long as their attempts at making her life a living hell did not extend beyond these walls. But vampires, werewolves, demons, veneficae, and hellsehers? She was still learning how to live with those.
A lot had changed for Loren since her first day at Angelthene Academy, but as far as the other students were concerned, she was the same person she had always been.
Human. Weak. Ordinary. An easy target.
That was fine with her. They didn’t need to know the truth, nor did she want them to. Better to be targeted for being human than to be targeted for housing the coveted powers of a legendary magical artifact.
Loren was doing her best to ignore the students seated at the table behind her in history class, but as the minutes wore on, and more balls of paper struck the back of her head, the harder it became to resist the urge to tell them off.
The students—three male warlocks who excelled at sports and not much else—were some of the most persistent bullies she had ever encountered. It hadn’t taken long after her first day here at AA to conclude they were worse than the kids she’d dealt with in high school, the ones who’d vandalized her locker and poured orange juice into her lap in the cafeteria on a near daily basis.
But she wasn’t the same girl she was back in high school, nor was she the same girl who’d stood outside on the academy lawn with the other freshmen of the House of Salt last Septem. She wasn’t even the same girl who’d walked the hallways before Kalendae. And if they threw one more ball of paper at her head, she just might lose it.
Roughly three weeks had passed since the city had been leveled by the explosion of the Arcanum Well replica, less than two weeks since she’d met her father on the dock at Jade Beach, and she had yet to recover from the shock of both events. But she tried not to dwell, especially on anything having to do with Erasmus Sophronia, creator of not only the Arcanum Well but of hellsehers. Thoughts of the man who’d introduced himself to her as her father didn’t just make her head feel like it was being turned upside down, but also like it was being shaken. Vigorously.
She hadn’t seen or talked to Erasmus since that windy afternoon at Jade Beach, but she was supposed to meet him at his house for supper tomorrow. Loren hadn’t thought twice before accepting her father’s invitation. She was desperate for answers, and even having to wait these few days to get those answers was torture.
How was he mortal again? How was it possible that he could still be alive after his skeleton—his skeleton, this fact confirmed by a DNA test at Lucent Enterprises—had been dug up in a grave in Angelthene National Forest? Why had he waited until she was nineteen to come looking for her? Did he ever regret abandoning her at the Temple of the Scarlet Star when she was a baby? Had he missed her at all?
It was these gnawing questions—and plenty more—that had led to their dinner arrangement. Friday evening, six o’clock. But now, as the seconds ticked away, and tomorrow loomed, she felt less like the newer, braver version of herself and more like the old.
She propped her chin in her hand and chewed her lip, tapping the worn eraser on the end of her pencil against her notebook, eyes that were glazed with disinterest flicking about the spacious classroom. Professor Griffith’s lesson was dragging by at a snail’s pace, her monotonous voice droning on and on. Loren couldn’t recall one word that had left her mouth since the lesson started. She was usually attentive in class and looked forward to learning Terran history. Today? Not so much.
As she tapped her pencil on the page and stewed over having dinner with the father she barely knew, she considered inviting Darien to go with her. The more she entertained the idea, the more tempting it sounded. If the conversation got awkward, she knew Darien would jump in and encourage her to voice all the questions she wanted to ask. Aside from that, she certainly wouldn’t mind having him at her side. After all, he was the tastiest eye candy in all of Terra. And there was a solid chance he would hold her hand under the table the whole time, which still gave her butterflies, no matter how many times he did it. All he had to do was look at her and she melted.
Man, she was a sucker for him.
The crunch of paper being packed into a ball sliced into her thoughts. She braced herself, counting the seconds based off memory, before ducking her head to the left to dodge the incoming assault.
The ball of paper bounced onto the table she was sharing with Sabrine Van Arsdell and Dallas Bright. It rolled to the very edge before stilling, knocking another just like it to the scuffed floor. The balled-up papers scattered across the table were covered with words scrawled in black ink, but she hadn’t bothered to unfold and read them. She didn’t need to be a genius to know there was nothing on them but insults and filthy comments. Whispers were hard enough to ignore, and unless she wanted to wear earplugs twenty-four-seven, hearing them was pretty much unavoidable. In this case, she at least had a choice.
It was times like these that made her wish all eight-point-seven million people in this city had memory of the events of Kalendae, how they’d all died in that blast and were only here, at this very moment, because of her. The wish her father had purchased for her from Tempus the Liar, God of Time, had certainly helped. But if it weren’t for the elusive power that hadn’t graced her with its presence since that day, no one would be here. This city wouldn’t even be standing. Instead, Darien was the only other person with full memory of Kalendae and time’s reversal, though of course they’d trusted the others who were involved that day with the truth—the Devils, Dallas and Sabrine, Arthur, Logan, the Angels of Death, the few Vipers who had been present. The last thing she wanted was to be placed on a pedestal, but a little kindness and respect wouldn’t hurt, especially after twenty years of being denied both.
Speaking of respect…
The warlocks behind her were snickering. The sound of another piece of paper being torn out of a notebook ripped through the otherwise silent classroom, and one of the boys started kicking the leg of her chair. Thump, thump, thump. Her seat was jarred forward with every strike of his shoe, until her torso was pressed right up against the edge of the table, wood digging in. The professor was too absorbed in her lesson to notice that the lone human in the group was being harassed.
Story of Loren’s life.
Blood boiling, Loren lunged over the table and grabbed one of the balled-up papers—the one with the words half-life and slut glaring at her through a sharp crease. She turned in her seat, wound her arm back, and threw it straight at Ethan McIntyre’s smug face.
It nailed him right between the eyebrows.
His jaw dropped open, the snickering of his two bonehead friends fading into silence. They all gaped at her, mouths hanging open like fish gasping for air.
“The next thing any of you idiots throw at me is getting stuffed down your throats!” Loren hissed. The other students within earshot either stared at her in shock or laughed under their breath.
Loren waited, providing Ethan and his friends an opportunity to talk back and see where it got them. But they said nothing. With one last glare directed at Ethan, she turned back around to face the front.
