Page 32 of Two Who Live On

“Many high-tier demons have attacked the city. Sort of reminds me of that Sacramento v. Sirens lesson we had,” Jamie said, thoughts bordering on the student who’d referenced that lecture: Tara. “They said Sacramento was so infested, it was more demon than witch by the time the military acted, which begs the question, how will—”

“It’s not the same,” Gael said, once again cutting Jamie off with a smile on his face which only increased the more Jamie sneered in response. “They didn’t have Enchanter Evergreen.”

“Ba-bawk!”

“I know he’s trying to change the conversation to guilds so he can talk shit about the Whitlocks.”

“Cl-cl-cluck.”

“Yeah, Tara says she doesn’t give a fuck about that, but I’m not going to let Jamie worm his way into any kind of conversation that gives him a voice against her. I’ll fuck him up.”

My face flushed. Gael never vocalized it. Hell, most of his thoughts were so random and vulgar, it was difficult finding these deep, caring gems.

King Clucks crowed.

“We might have an Enchanter Evergreen”—Jamie’s eyes flitted past Tara, past Gael, and landed on me—“but even he couldn’t handle a devil.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, hell no. He’s not trying to talk shit about my boy, Evergreen. Mr. Frosty better step up for his man before I—”

I squashed Gael’s thoughts.

“I simply mean, the demons which practically consumed Sacramento did so at the behest of a devil.” Jamie had a menacing expression, his eyes locked onto me in some effort to taunt or goad me, yet his thoughts remained hollow. “Or so they say. Who really knows, right?”

“Devils aren’t real,” Gael exclaimed. “They’re a total superstition. Some demons just look human-y depending on their classification, which you’d know if you did the reading.”

He folded his arms, proudly boasting and leaving out the part where he had, in fact, not done the reading but relied on Tara and King Clucks to fill him in on the previous lessons. I rolled my eyes, quelling his ego.

Admittedly, Gael’s timely interjection helped shake away Jamie’s haunting attitude and helped me realize his thoughts weren’tempty, but rather my telepathy continued fizzling out in bizarre intervals.

“Devils are real,” I said. “Possession happens. Demons have been known to take hold of a witch’s body.”

“Some people say really strong demons take everything you were and scoop it out.” Jamie leaned his desk, using telekinesis to tilt it closer to Tara’s. “They wear your face, a devil in disguise, without all the baggage of a broken mortal coil.”

“But that’s a much rarer instance.” I waved a hand, slamming Jamie’s desk back in place and rattling him in the same manner he intended to rattle Tara. “So uncommon, in fact, it’s not something covered in our curriculum. Those of you who wish to learn more about devils are welcome to take my Advanced Demonology course in your third year, but for the time being, let’s cover the basics of demon classifications.”

With that, I kept the conversation from students to a minimum and did my best to cover the content I had planned for the day.

Once we returned to homeroom, I brought my students to the auxiliary gym, joining Chanelle’s class for practice. She had them all focused on training their root magics, the same as what I’d planned, but not in the fun make-a-game-out-of-it way.

“Here I figured you were avoiding me,” Chanelle thought.

“And why oh why would I be avoiding you?”

Chanelle’s eyes widened, momentarily startled I’d linked to her mind so seamlessly, something I’d never done before. An easy thing for me, even with my branch acting wonky. The only thing really affected was glimpsing Milo randomly and my inability to summon manifestations.

“Calling in my favor. I need you to cover the Volunteer Program.” Chanelle quickly recovered and rambled off a very long checklist of dos and don’ts for supervision.

“A bit short notice.” I glared.

“Please, as if you’ve got better things to do.” Chanelle eyed me up and down, judgment in what she considered grungy. “We both know Enchanter Evergreen’s busy, so no late-night rendezvous.”

“Must you?”

“I must.”

Their friendship was still irksome. Sometimes, the way Milo and Chanelle boxed thoughts of their conversations away when I was around, it felt like they were conspiring when together. They probably were. Ways to make grumpy anti-social Dorian Frost more outgoing and emotionally involved. I shuddered. Now, that was a scary thought.

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