Page 31 of Architecti
There is no hum or vibration this morning.No bite, no blood.Was it all just a dream?A hallucination?
“You okay?”Lex says, staring at my knuckles where I grip the bar tight enough to turn them white.
I didn’t even realise she’d stopped to wait for me.
“I… umm, yeah.Let’s go.”
We’re almost through the gates when I hear my name.It lurks in the wind, all whisper and scream.
I try to locate the source.But it’s nowhere.And everywhere.It crawls along my skin, slithers in my ears, coats my flesh in echoes.
I scan the long line of carriages behind me, all their windows and doors fastened shut.There’s a sea of protesters pressed back by stern security.But no one holds my gaze or waves, no one calls to me.
I glance at the wound on my hand.It’s sealed over, but I rub and knead at the itching scab as if it might scratch away the coiling in my gut.
It must have been the crowd.
We break through into campus and a shroud of heavy fog swallows us whole.It sends tingles stretching from my belly to my toes.
Then the mist clears completely.
I falter, spin around only to be greeted by the towering wall of white.
“What the hell?”I whisper.
“So cool,” Lex says, bouncing on the balls of her platform trainers.
“There are manycoolthings about the Academy,” a tall lady says.She wears narrow glasses, her hair grey, but she bears the yellowest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“You’re a demon,” I say, stating the obvious and instantly regretting it.Obviously, she knows she’s a demon.But they don’t exactly dance in the streets of Ora City.They come to the city to make deals and then return to the underworld or campus or wherever they subsist.Save the few who find they have a taste for our realm.
Lex’s mouth twitches like she’s trying not to laugh at me.
She sighs.“How astute of you.Park your bike over there and make your way to the cloisters.You’ll be greeted and placed into a testing group.I assume you both have your invitations?”
Lex whips hers out, the stark white card sharp against the red whorls and dark parchment of mine.
They both falter at the sight of my letter.It makes my insides shift and plummet.Am I mistaken?Did I not get in?Is this all a desperate delusion I created?
I am a confident woman.But this professor is terrifying.She carries a severity reserved for librarians and mothers of teenagers whofuuuuckedup.She makes me feel like a child, and I shrink away.
“How odd.It seems like a valid invite, though.Welcome to Finis Academy.I’m Professor Evadne Verrill.Omnia mors aequat.”
“Death renders all equal,” I breathe, and she nods approvingly.
“I take care of the library.”
Of course she does.I daren’t interrupt her to say that, though.Lex visibly brightens at the news.Verrill narrows her eyes through her narrower glasses.
“You’ll find yourself in my area often, if you know what’s good for you.”
I’m about to thank her when she steps in front of us, arm out, blocking our view.
She spits out a caustic sentence.All hard edges, clicks and guttural noises.
Lex grabs my hand and squeezes; this must be a necromantic language she’s so desperate to learn.
A silvery-white flash erupts from the building behind us.It twists and coils and threads through the air until it loops around Verrill’s arms.Screeching ricochets off the building and rends the atmosphere, and I clap my hands to my ears.A charred limb flops onto the cobbles in front of us.
