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I heave into my chair, right next to Axe, busy on his tablet. “I am in no mood for your bullshit, Karloff.”
Karloff makes a sound that might have been a hiccup, a laugh, or a cough. I look up from retrieving my tablet to see a strange expression on the demon’s face.
A smile.
“Points to House Pride for the gumption.”
Before the bell rings to start class, I jab Axe in the arm with my elbow. “Where have you been?” I whisper.
He leans over, stylus still tapping away on his screen. “Why? Miss me?”
“More than you know.”
Axe’s eyebrows shoot up clear to his hairline.
I didn’t mean to say that. I especially didn’t mean to say it with a husky sigh.
Thanks, brain.
“Well, it’s your fault. You left me in what amounts to a room with no window, no entertainment, no way out, with a demon who hates me.”
It’s only the second time that’s happened. A scoff, or a humored huff, sure.
But saying that Dashel hates me elicited full laugh from him.
"Alright, class,” Karloff yells over the sound of the bell. “Today we start with Multi-Variable Arithmancy.”
Even Axe groans at the announcement.
I see why when Karloff summons the first slide.
It’s not math. It’s an entirely different language, which I’d be fine with if I saw the point.
No one on Celestus bothers with arithmancy anymore, for exactly this reason. It’s difficult, cumbersome, and most would say obsolete if not entirely unnecessary. Lucky for me, Malachi wanted the best tutors for me, one of which had a soft spot for ancient calculation techniques.
“Ms. Collins, since you’ve decided to be here for a change, why not make yourself useful and show the class how to solve for spatial variance, solar and celestial alignment, and moon phase.”
Karloff can’t keep from grinning.
And I can’t help but show him what the daughter of the High Commander of Hosts, with unlimited resources, can do with his ridiculous math problem.
Chapter Sixteen
Fast-travel is used by many species in many realms. All realms are amenable to such magic except Cinder and Celestus, where cross-travel is impossible.
- Quantum Mechanics and You: The Secondary School Required Text
The heirsand I settle into a strange pattern. They take turns staying in the lair with me while the other three are off doing whatever it is they do. We go to class, come back to the lair for lunch, and finish out the school day. The classes we don’t have together, we now do. I don’t know how they managed it, but they convinced the headmaster to change their schedules, so there is always a house head next to me.
A week in, Stevie approaches me, paying no attention to the entourage of demons in a tight circle around me. “Hey, want to have lunch with us today?” she says around Axe with a smile, but it’s off. It doesn’t reach her eyes.
I lean around Axe. “I’d like to, Stevie, honest.”
Her smile vanishes, and she crosses her arms, shifting her weight to her back foot. It’s not quite a step back, but the message is the same.
She already knows I’m about to say no.
I expect her to ask why before I even get the word out. But instead, she looks right over my head at the demon standing in front of me.
