Fallen University: Year Two

Xero glanced at me, and I saw the glint of his eyes rolling in the dim light. I looked at Sonja and cocked my head to one side.

“If I tell him to let you go, will you be a good girl and not throw any more fireballs at me?”

“Oh, fuck off, bitch. Let go of me!”

“Ah-ah,” I said. “Not until you promise to stop throwing those things around. They’re dangerous, and this is a confined space. You’re liable to hurt someone.”

As if that hadn’t been her intention all along.

“Fine, I promise,” she spat.

“Good.” I shifted my focus to Xero, nodding slightly. “Let go of her, but stay where you are in case she has trouble keeping that promise.”

She huffed as the fire demon released her. I felt around with my mind for Kingston; he had gone on without us, but he wasn’t too far.

“Kingston.” I raised my voice as loud as I dared, adding a tiny nudge of persuasion to break through his dragon’s covetousness. “Get back here.”

He was resistant, but he began slowly making his way back. That was fine. I just didn’t want him getting hurt with no backup. And to be honest, I wanted him to be our backup.

Stepping forward, I turned my attention back at Sonja, whose eyes were darting around at the four of us like she was going to try to make a move. She shook her wrist, jangling the bracelet there. The bracelet caught my eye and made my heart race. It was a simple bracelet, just copper and leather braided around and through a turquoise rhombus, but something about it made every hair on my body stand on end.

I recognized it.

I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d seen it before, but for some reason, the sight of it made me want to tear her arm off.

Take it. Take it from her. Don’t let her have it.

The thoughts filtering through my head made no sense, but before I could sort out why I wanted to yank the bracelet from her wrist, she lifted it to her lips and pressed a finger to the rhombus. The thing glowed a brilliant, blinding blue and emanated a frequency that I could feel more than hear.

“I need backup in the cave!” she shouted into the bracelet. “Now!”

Goddamn it. Some kind of communication charm.

I lunged at her, but she snatched her arm back with a smug look, twisting in Xero’s grasp.

“Now you really won’t get away with this.” She flashed me a triumphant look. “The Custodians are on their way to arrest you.”

I almost laughed. She was full of shit. But she looked so damn confident that I hesitated, then frowned.

“How have you been communicating with the Custodians? They didn’t come with the school. And there’s no way to reach anyone on earth.”

That wasn’t strictly true, but the only method I was aware of was the enchanted phone Kingston had smuggled in.

“That’s what you think,” Sonja said in sing-song. She raised her wrist and jangled the bracelet again. “This little beauty here? It’s a charmed comm link. I can talk to the Custodians anytime, anywhere I want to. They’ve been really interested in hearing all about the little conspiracies you’ve been plotting, and about the filthy demons infesting the school.”

I glared at her. “What, you mean the students?”

“No!” Her lip curled, and she squirmed in Xero’s grasp as if she couldn’t stand being touched by someone as corrupted by the underworld as him. My blood pressure rose as she let out a scoff. “I mean all ones who have turned traitor, who’ve forgotten that our only purpose is to serve the Custodians and protect humanity. The ones who have truly fallen. The Custodians were very interested to hear about how many of them have been brought downstairs because they couldn’t resist the evil atmosphere in this place.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. On so many levels, wrong.

My frown deepened as I resisted the urge to scream at her for her ignorant prejudice, focusing instead on filling in the gaping holes in her story. None of what she was saying made sense.

“Okay—so you can talk to the Custodians. But you just called for backup. Who’s going to come? Do they have other students working for them in the underworld?”

I couldn’t believe they had anybody working for them on the inside. Dru would’ve told us if he’d known, and I was almost positive he was high enough up the chain of command that he would have known. But Sonja clearly believed what she was saying, and I wanted the whole story.

She sniffed and tossed her red hair back. “Of course not. They only trust me to be their eyes and ears in the underworld—everyone else is caught up in one conspiracy or another. It’s my job to tell them who’s definitely been corrupted, like you, who’s potentially corrupted, like Toland, and everything else that happens.”