Page 18 of The Prince of Demons

When I first got the email today, ‘Thanks for applying to work at The Eternal! Schedule an interview time!” I was jumping for joy. But now, sitting in the waiting room, I couldn’t focus. I wanted so badly to pull out my phone, just for a little stimulation, distraction, or excitement, but I felt it would be unprofessional.

For such a well-regarded student newspaper, you’d think that they could afford some candles. I didn’t even have Gaksi to entertain me today—he was off with his “buddy,” whatever that meant. Shudder. I couldn’t even imagine who would want to be friends with him outside my family.

At least me and my friends were alive. Yellow tape roped off another victim of demon slaughter from last night just outside the Whispering Woods.

“Come in,” a brisk voice called from behind the door.

They wouldn't even greet me? Weird.

I cautiously opened the door myself, brushing snow off my fingers, finding a sharp-eared Fae waiting for me.

She sat on the edge of a pristine white desk chair, typing into a shiny new computer. The windows were drawn open behind her, bathing her in soft light. Unlike her rod-straight posture.

“Luna.” She inclined her head, eyes still on the computer. “Sit.”

“Let me work for The Eternal,” I started.

Her typing ceased. “Hmm? No, ‘good morning, how are you’?”

“Fae get to the point, don’t they?”

She lounged back in her chair and swiveled toward me. “You’re rather bold for a freshman.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Wasn’t a lie, either.” I smiled. I was a mastermind at faking it.“You have to intimidate them,” Mother had warned me before school started. “Faeries respect power. Never let them see you as weak.”

“Faeries never lie, do they?” I asked.

The faery drew her hands together over a sparkling crystal table, risen from the ice floor.

“We offer positions to promising students. Fish do not simply invite themselves.”

“Your newspaper, your rules.” I copied her posture, leaning back in my arctic chair like it wasn’t horribly uncomfortable. “You could let freshmen demand positions if they wanted to.”

“There are other students on this staff.”

“But none of them are the leader of Fae House, are they?” In this brief conversation, I’d figured out who I was talking to. Faeries loved to control the narrative, which included controlling the press. So much so that they’d convinced most of the world that they were harmless garden sprites and not capricious, cruel masterminds. Faery godmother propaganda and all that, erasing all the times they made medieval serfs dance until decomposition.

Flora surveyed me. She was a thin, bronze-skinned woman with piercing blue eyeshadow and perfectly styled hair.

“Shall we make a deal?” I asked.

Here we go. Everything with faeries went this way. The trick, however, was to make sure the deal always ended with me on top.

Flora’s perfectly manicured brows raised. She looked like she was wondering who was mad enough to make a deal with the Fae. Me, apparently.

“I’ll work for the eternal,” I proposed. “In exchange, you owe me a favor.”

She tilted her head. Laughed, like icicles rattling in a snowy breeze. “You’re not the first to offer me information for a favor.”

“But you need info,” I said. “Nobody knows who the campus murderer is. Even with your staff at it, you can’t figure it out. Not only that, you’re being outsold by the oracle.”

“It is rather difficult to compete with one who can tell the future, yes.”

“Did you see the picture I sent the oracle? I can figure out who’s doing this.”

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