Page 34 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

David raises his brows. "You think there's a line for the dick-flattening machine?"

"You think it has room to pancake more than one dick at a time?" He snorts. "Doubtful."

I sigh, and the sigh turns into helpless laughter. It's not that the joke is terribly funny—it's more than I'm so incredibly tired. Wrung out and empty of hope. I feel like the Heretic punched a hole in my chest and ripped my heart out. Only in this case, my heart takes the shape of three shifter familiars, stuck in the worst place in existence because of me.

"If I don't free you guys in time, you'll be torn apart by demons." I feel tears trickle down my cheek, and don't bother to wipe them away. "There'll be nothing left of you to bring back to Earth, because your bodies will be gone. You'll be..."

"Dead." Xavier finished the thought for me. He pushes his glasses up and stands, striding towards me with a serious expression on his handsome face. "We're putting our lives in your hands, Ari. Because we trust you. Absolutely."

I glance over at the other two. Reggie unconvincingly says, "Yeah, absolute trust!"

"I'd be your cheerleader if I had a sunnier disposition," David jokes. A moment later his expression turns somber. "Yeah, you can do it. You're just that stubborn, smart, and talented. I couldn't do it, but Ari—you can."

"You know what? He's right." Reggie gives me a sharp nod. "You're smart as fuck. You'll get us out of here. We can sit around and wait... I'm sure the demons won't tear us apart immediately."

My heart squeezes at their confidence. I don't feel like I've truly earned it. The truth is, I'm terrified that if I walk through this door at Nehamae's urging, I'll get to the other side and never see these three again.

Somehow, at some point, they started to mean so much to me. Not just because they've been here with me the whole way. And not only because of the drunken intimacy we shared in that strange lake.

There are threads that bind us, that make them feel like family. I know their fears and their desires, and they know mine. In a time when I thought I had nothing—when I'd died and came back different—they gave me life and protected me from danger.

I have to repay that by getting them out of the mess I've put them in. Even if it means facing my worst nightmare and going out into the unknown alone.

"I won't be long," I promise them, courage somehow overcoming my fear. "I'll find Auerbach and Dani right away, if she isn't in Hell anymore, which I assume she isn't now that the door is closed. We'll get you out of here. Even if I have to crack open the Earth and force Hell's gates wide."

Nehamae snorts. "It doesn't work that way."

"Well, however it works—"

Raising my hand, I wave it in front of me as I talk—and stumble back as something strange and new clicks around my wrist from nowhere. At first I think it's a trap of some kind, a chain or some strange curse. Then I realize it's a bracelet, its form a single unbroken circle without a clasp or joint.

"Nehamae, did you do this?" I frown at her. "A warning might've been nice. I guess it's to get me through the door, but—"

"I didn't do that." She buzzes around my wrist, little fingers probing the bracelet as if it might unlock its secrets for her. "It came from the mortal world and has attached itself to your spirit. It's... incredibly powerful. The most powerful thing I've ever seen. With enough spirit magic to join itself to you body and soul."

I stare at the thing, running my finger around it. Xavier does too. Reggie and David crane their necks to look at the bracelet.

Maybe my witch magic will tell me what it is. Inhaling, I reach for my naturalistic senses and stretch them out around me to touch everything.

I feel the spirits of seven impossibly heavy, weighted beings.

Immortals.Their magic is the whisper of dragon fire and beating of a unicorn's heart against my skin. Evil deep as a ravine and good to cast every cloud from the sky. The bracelet glows with light and warmth against my wrist, and I grit my teeth against the tidal wave of power that floods through me. Magic pours from me, cascades in waves, makes my hair float in a crown around my head and my clothes whip around me.

Suddenly everything is open before me.

I understand now what the Blue Phoenix were talking about.

Somehow I have the feeling Dani is behind this.

"Ari!" Xavier stumbles back as wind whips around me, his eyes wide, his hands up in front of him. "Your eyes, they're glowing—you whole body is glowing!"

It is. There's an aura of blue light in the air, filling my surroundings with feral Blue Phoenix Magic. The bracelet feeds more and more of it into my body until I feel like it has nowhere to go but out, now, right now, because it's making my heart beat faster and my skin crawl.

So I do the only thing I can think of.

I walk towards the door out of here, place two glowing blue palms on its heavy ancient oak surface, and push with everything I've got.

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