Right now, I concentrated on getting my breath to even out. Squinting, I saw that it was still not yet six in the morning. I’d barely had a chance to close my eyes, but the nightmare had come on quickly. Like it was waiting for me. I had a feeling that was exactly the case.
I lay there shivering under my blankets even though it wasn’t cold. An hour later, Sophie stirred. Thankfully, I had my back to the room, so she didn’t notice that my face was streaked with tears.
I heard Basil yawn while Sophie got up to go to the bathroom. He moaned and groaned in the morning like he had a stiff body. I guess some habits never died.
“Lex,” Basil said, “I know you’re awake.”
I tried not to groan myself. Somehow, he always knew when I was faking it. “My stuffing is coming out on one side. Can you stitch me up? That confounded cat really did a number on me.”
I sighed. “Can’t I even sleep in on my last free day?”
“No rest for the wicked,”
“Who are you calling wicked?” I rolled over onto my back.
“There’s no other way to describe you.”
If it would have made a difference, I would have thrown the blade at him. After last night, blade throwing was the last thing that should have been on my mind. Instead, I dragged the covers off me and scrambled around for the repair kit I’d made him after what we now called the Cat Incident.
Most of the people in the compound could make peace with the idea that Basil was a soul inside a doll. But Samuel, Sophie’s great aunt’s cat, could not. The cat saw Basil as a particularly exciting chew toy. One day I’d come home from the open-air market to find Basil half gutted with his stuffing hanging out. The problem was that once he was unstitched, he seemed to keep unwinding no matter what I did. Hence the repair kit. Sophie was much better at stitching than I was, but for some reason her repairs kept coming apart. So she’d had to teach me because she didn’t want to keep doing it.
“Did you snag yourself on something last night?” I asked him while he was in my lap. I threaded wool through the eye of the big needle and started to stitch.
“There’s nothing around here to get stuck on!” he protested. He had a point.
I had only just finished stitching up his side when Sophie returned with Diana. The dwarf grinned at me. I leaped up and gave her a hug.
“I hear you may be on the shifter’s most wanted list,” she said. I stuck my tongue out at Sophie.
“I am not. It was all a misunderstanding.”
“Only you would go to a shifter banquet and try to kill their alpha.”
“Can we please change the subject? I haven’t even had breakfast yet!”
Now that they were together, neither of them would leave me alone about it. I wrote a note so Basil could go to the library to get away. They followed me into the communal bathroom making jokes about how I’d probably have tried to kill Jacqueline when we first met if I had a demon blade with me.
Even though the bathrooms were communal, there were quite a few of them scattered around the dorms. We normally didn’t run into too many people. But it was the day before school started and everyone was heading back to the Academy. They were all excited after their respective holidays. I heard the squealing in the bathroom well before I opened the door. When we stepped in, the laughter died.
The four vampire girls inside looked at me pointedly. Their lips kept quirking up into sly smiles.
“Hey,” Diana said.
It seemed to startle them. “Hello.” It was a communal greeting. They tittered and then hightailed it out of the room.
“That was weird,” I said.
“Is it?” Sophie commented. “It feels about right.”
I pushed open the shower stall and went inside. While I washed, I could hear the girls talking in low voices. I hurried so I didn’t miss out on any of the conversation. By the time we reached the dining hall, I’d put the incident with those girls out of my mind. That was until we got closer and I could feel the distinct pinprick of eyes on me.
“What’s going on?” I said.
Sophie frowned. “Do you know anything about this?” she asked Diana.
“Roland and I only got back this morning,” she said. They’d gone home to their community which was settled under the vast caverns beneath the Blue Mountains.
We were waiting in line when Sasha cut in front of us. He hissed out a greeting. “Do you mind?” Diana said.
“Have you guys heard the gossip?” Sasha said. Somebody behind us cleared their throat but he ignored them.
“What gossip?” I asked. Sasha peered at me. It was like he was trying to look through me.
“Someone has been saying that you saw Lucifer while you were down in the caverns,” Sasha said. “They say you’ve got that sword because your blood is his.”
I stopped so hard the person behind me ran into my back. I heard a snarl and wheeled around. My eyes must have been flashing fire because the Fae girl’s face bleached of colour. My bottom lip was jutting out when I turned back around.
“I’m not a Nephilim,” I grit out. “So how the hell could I be blooded by Lucifer?” Of all the things to get out, why did it have to be this thing?
“Nobody is really saying how it is,” Sasha said. “There’s just a lot of conjecture. And –”
He saw the look on my face. “And?”
“Do you really want to know?” We were at the front of the line. He tried to take the tray I’d just lifted out of my hands. “Can you not have a weapon with you when I tell you?”
“Just spill it!” Diana said.
We passed by the vampire and blood drinker buffet section. He
