Page 93 of Architecti
“I told you.Happy memories are always underestimated.Seal the orb so it becomes stable.”I do.The shade smiles at me and drifts back towards the hole in the Veil.Her form dissolves back to smoke and drifts through the opening, which I stitch closed when she’s gone.
I compress my hands over the orb the way a child would squish colourful dough.I push until sweat forms on my brow and my arms tremble from exertion.For once, my nose doesn’t rupture.But I am spent by the time the orb takes on a glassy, solid feeling.
“Done,” I pronounce and display it to her.
She beams at me and then her eyes glint.“Again.”
Ah, fuck.
Lucy makes me repeat the process a dozen more times, until I am so fast that she actually loses count.What is both surprising and delightful is that I didn’t get a nosebleed this evening.
“I’m getting stronger,” I say.“Now for your gift…”
I pull out my copy of her rune.It’s as crumpled as hers is.She frowns.
“I know what it is… I was in my apartment studying and Lex took the drawing from me.I didn’t tell her anything, but she took it and compared it to some old book of hers and told me what it is…”
Her mouth falls open.“You’re lying.”
I shake my head.“All this time we’ve been looking in the wrong places… Looking for demonic languages.”
Her eyes widen, and she takes the paper.“It’s not demonic?”
“No.It’s celestial.That’s why you couldn’t find it.”
She looks up at me, her face growing pale.“Why the hell do I have celestial runes on my body?”
“Thatis the real question,” I say.
She lights up the way the sun does every dawn, her features beaming with delight.“We have to celebrate,” she says.
And then she leaps into my arms and plunges her mouth onto mine.
30
Midnight
Ipry Lucy from me, untangling her arms and cupping her face.My heart hammers in my throat.My fingers pulse with the same need as my cunt.
I am done.
Done waiting.
Done hiding.Fuck the rules and the campus, I need her.
“You’re going to meet me by the front gates, do you understand?”It’s not a question and there is no compromise.
“I…”
“Lucy,” I growl.
“Yes, Daddy.”
Fuck me.My jaw clicks as I bite down and internalise a stream of obscene things I plan to do to her.
“Go.Now,” I say.“We need to celebrate.”
She sneaks out the front gate, I take one of the other exits, riding my bike around to the front and finding her hidden a few hundred metres up the campus driveway in the trailing branches of an evergreen tree.
