Page 27 of Architecti
The tower is regal as ever.It houses fifteen floors total: seven above and seven below and the ground floor smack in the middle.Each floor down is more demonic than the last, and each floor up more celestial than the previous.
Beneath them all lies a forbidden basement with a door to the underworld, and above them sits an ancient records room holding a door to the celestial realm.That’s the other rule of the Academy: no one goes to the basement without training and permission.My father’s permission.
Connecting each level is a single spiral staircase that carves a coil through the centre of the tower.
Seven floors for seven devils.
Seven floors for seven angels.And one ground level for Ora City, the gateway to everywhere else.
“Bloody goyles thinking they own the place,” Thalia grumbles as she leads me into the largest of the lecture theatres on the ground floor.
We make our way through the foyer, our feet dancing over the chequered tiles.The building hums, thick and sticky with magic.Candles flicker in sconces, dim streaks of light paint the floor.Every wall is covered in shelves and books, jars, specimens and scrolls.The sweet musty smell of decaying paper fills the air.I inhale, wishing I could breathe in new magic, maybe a clause that would supersede my father’s contract.I’ve tried; gods, have I tried.I’ve spent months searching the demonic library for my contract, to no avail.I must have glimpsed every other agreement we have stored but mine.Years I’ve spent studying and hunting for anything I can find about underage contracts.Contracts that save lives.
The air ruffles, and I glance over my shoulder but no one’s there.
Thalia tugs at me, urging me towards the theatre.“You know it’s not really haunted.”
I squint into the gloom, but we’re definitely alone.“So they say.”
“Oh, come on, you’re really superstitious?”
I give her a stern glance.“Is it really so hard to imagine the tower is haunted?It’s literally our job to work with the dead.”
She nods.“Then if it were haunted, don’t you think a campus full of professors who all work with the dead would have heard about it?”
Once again, she has a point.Though it doesn’t stop my skin from itching like the bite of nettles on flesh.
Thalia opens the lecture hall door, and we take seats near the front.I spot Father lurking in the stage alcoves.He nods at me, his face severe.
“Do you know what’s going on?”I whisper to Thalia as she waves and greets various faculty members.
“No.But were you here last week when we had that tremor?”she whispers out the side of her mouth.
I shake my head.
“It was awful.”
“I think—” she starts, but Chancellor Lucan Arcadius strides on stage, my father, the dean and second-in-command, two steps behind.
He’ll hate that.Arcadius has an ego the size of the underworld.I mean, why wouldn’t you as the archdevil.He is the highest ranking of all devils and has been around for longer than anyone can remember.He’s completely unbeatable.Which is exactly why my father hates him.He’d cut off a limb if it meant he could rule the underworld, or be Chancellor, for that matter.
Thalia licks her lips as Lucan strides up to the lectern.I cock my head at her.
“What?A girl can appreciate a strapping man.”
Strapping is right, his thigh muscles bulge through his trousers.
“I thought your ex was a woman,” I say.
She shrugs.“I like who I like.”
I glance back at Arcadius.His shoulders are as wide as a carriage.Two silvery-white horns slice through his hair, curving in a sinister twist above his head.Not all demons are horned, but some, especially the most powerful, tend to be.My father isn’t, and he takes this as some emasculation of his demonhood.
Arcadius’s eyes harbour the same swirls of black as Father’s, with one difference.Where Father’s hold darkness, Lucan’s hold a cold kind of cruelty that screams sadistic bastard.Not in the spank-me-harder-daddy kind of sadism, either.His teeth are sharp, his nose patrician and regal and his dark brown skin curves and bulges with ounces and ounces of muscle.
He taps the mic on the lectern.“Finis Academy.”
There’s a rumbling in the audience as the professors who are less inclined to perform the arbitrary student response of Good morning, Professor Arcadiusmumble responses.
