“Get with the times, Mads,” he proclaimed. “Kayla and I broke up a year ago.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Still a sore point?”
“It didn’t work long-term. Shite happens. But I wanna know where you’ve been. You never write or call.”
“People drift apart after school,” I told him.
“Humans say those kinds of things. We’re different. War can’t tear us apart, Mads.”
I shrugged. “Sorry. I’ve never been good with people skills. I don’t think my life is that interesting.”
“Mads. We were born to be interesting.”
I pointed my fork at him, secretly glad he was here. After everything that’d happened at the Academy, the senior class and I had all become fast friends, but lost touch after graduation. “You know I don’t like it when you call me Mads.”
Another tray clattered down next to mine and I looked up to find another familiar face from my tumultuous school days.
“Crikey,” Maisy declared, sitting down, “if it isn’t Madeleine Greenbriar, come to grace us with her presence.”
“What kind of word is crikey?” I asked, screwing up my face.
“I learned it from the Australians,” she replied. “It’s occa for OMG.”
Trent snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Does it comfort you knowing some things never change, Mads?”
Maisy had always been on the outer edges of the mean girl trio that ruled the Academy. Kayla was the queen and Maisy and Trisha had been her little worker bees. She’d been part of the bullying, but apologised and make amends after the attack. We’d come together when it’d mattered the most, so I supposed it was progress.
I narrowed my eyes at Trent. Talking about personal growth—his smart mouth hadn’t progressed with the stubble on his chin. “What’s Kayla doing now?”
“We don’t talk about her,” Maisy whispered.
“She knows about the breakup,” Trent said, raising his voice. “No need to whisper. I’m over her.”
Maisy snorted and rolled her eyes, signalling she thought he wasn’t. Trent always talked a big game.
I didn’t care to know all the sordid details, so I turned the conversation around. “What about Trisha, then?”
“She finally got her posting in New York,” Maisy said.
“She went to America?” I asked. “Why?”
“After her sister, Alicia, was killed in the Dark Night attacks, she wanted to see where she’d made her life,” Maisy explained. “Alicia was head of some special task force. Pretty covert work, apparently.”
The Dark Night. It had a dramatic flair to it, but it fit the devastation those few hours, five years ago, had caused. In the weeks before the rift had closed, the demon-hybrid Mordred had led a coordinated attack on Sanctums all over the world. In the aftermath—after we’d won the war—the truth of the devastation had finally been revealed and it was worse than we’d known. New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Rome, Paris, Cape Town, Lima, Tokyo, and London had fallen. It was the worst loss the Naturals had faced since the cataclysm. Still, the balance had tipped so far into the Light that the Dark barely had any holes left to hide in.
“Ever heard of the mole people?” Trent asked.
I frowned. “Mole people?”
He nodded. “There’s an urban legend amongst the humans about people who live in the underground transit network underneath Manhattan—the subway as they call it there. Demons congregate in piss and shite, but the New York Sanctum believed there was more to the mole people than just myth.”
“They were mapping the tunnels hidden by Darkness when the Sanctum fell,” Maisy said. “They thought something was buried underneath the city, but never got the chance to find out.”
“Isn’t this supposed to be covert?” I asked.
“Not anymore. Word got out in the chaos. It’s public knowledge these days.”
“So…” Trent leaned his elbows on the table and gave me a fierce look, “why are you here? London get boring or something?”
I lowered my gaze. “I, uh—”
“She got into trouble again,” Maisy told him.
“How do you know?” I demanded.
She laughed and shook her head. “She’s forgotten how the rumour mill works.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the surrounding tables. A few heads turned away and a few more wore glares designed especially for me.
“I haven’t forgotten,” I murmured. “I’m not afforded that luxury.”
Trent frowned and followed my gaze.
“They don’t like me being here,” I told him.
“Screw them,” he declared. “They don’t know you, Madeleine. We do, and it’s their loss.”
I sighed and speared a potato with my fork. It was far too soggy to be considered roasted and split down the middle.
“You get that reaction a lot, don’t you?” Maisy asked.
“Let’s just say, I understand how Wilder felt all those years ago.”
“He was able to overcome it,” Trent told me.
Maisy kicked him underneath the table. “Yeah, by becoming Excalibur.”
“Great.” I rolled my eyes. “All I have to do is save the world from eternal war and I’ll be elevated to normal status. Good to know.”
“Don’t worry about them, Madeleine,” Maisy said. “Just follow your training and no one can hold anything against you.”
Easier said than done.
“Are both of you on security?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Maisy replied. “I don’t know what people have told you, but it’s not so bad.”
That surprised me. “I thought it would be dead up here. Pardon the pun.”
“Now and then we get a lone demon who will lurk around the wall,” Trent told me. “It was their home away from home for a few centuries, so they live in hope, I guess.”
“Animal instinct,” Maisy said.
“All the lesser demons are dead,” I reminded her. “You don’t think the ones who are left aren’t at least a little intelligent?”
“Define intelligent,” Trent replied with a smirk. “Camelot is crawling with Naturals, yet they still try.”
“Desperate hope,” Maisy said, looking out the clear side of the tent. The tip of the tallest tower of Camelot’s inner bailey was just visible in the fading sunlight.
“Maybe they left something
