Page 43 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

The guys all look just as horrified as I feel. David says, "Not in those exact words—"

"We didn't use that word at all," Xavier clarifies. "Just... we didn't want to assume that you'd be okay with everything that happened in Hell happening here, too. Especially with all three of us. We thought you might want to choose."

Reggie adds, "And we didn't want to pressure you. So none of us were supposed to make any overtures. Not until you were feeling one hundred percent. We agreed we'd just be there for you platonically. Which is what I was doing, only David took it the wrong way, because he's an asshole and an idiot."

"You're describing yourself."

"Am I, wolf?" Reggie narrows his eyes and raises his brows. "Anyway, Ari, I hope you don't feel bad about anything that happened... I mean, what we did... together... consensually... I hope..."

"It was consensual!" I flap my hands in the air, feeling heat at my neck as a blush crawls from my temple to my ribs, a truly remarkable feat. "All of it was consensual. I'd wanted—I mean, before the water... I was attracted to you. All three of you. I just didn't have the courage, or experience, to know how to make it happen."

Reggie quips, "It's usually pretty easy. Just unbutton a few buttons on your blouse and it will happen, if you know what I mean." When none of us responds, he clarifies, "My dick will get hard. That's what I mean."

"Gross, Reg." Xavier wrinkles his nose in distaste. "Unnecessary clarification."

"So let me get things clear." David shifts his weight and holds out his fingers, ticking each point off on them as he speaks. "One, you wanted all three of us before we were in Hell. Two, everything that happened there was consensual, though trippy as balls, I have to say. Three, you still want us... question mark? Because that part is unclear, and if we're going to do this thing, it should probably be clarified."

I can feel the weight of their gazes. I can't stop thinking about how they looked for me in the woods, frantic and prepared to charge into Hell itself for me. They may not have been able to see or hear me, but I felt the comfort of their protective presence all the same.

When I woke up in the infirmary to find them around me, it was the biggest relief of my life.

"I love you guys," I tell them, feeling a little more brave now that I'm able to say it aloud. "Yes, I want to try this thing here in the real world. Whatever that means... I haven't really figured it out yet, to be honest, but I'm hopeful that I will."

Reggie brightens. "Hey, we can figure it out naked."

I roll my eyes. David punches him in the shoulder. "Shut up, man."

"We'll figure it out together." Xavier is smiling at me, his warm eyes full of life, the late afternoon sun slanting through the window and turning his brown skin golden where it caresses him. "We've got all the time in the world now. Especially since the Headmaster gave us a few weeks off classes before we have to start up again."

"About that." Clearing my throat, I decide it's time to tell them what I want to do next. "I actually have some things that need to be finished up before I start classes again. I didn't mention it before, because I wasn't really sure if it was real, or what I would do about it, but... my sister Lizzy is alive. And she needs my help. I was hoping the three of you—"

"We'll be there with you through it all," David swears.

"Whatever you need," Xavier agrees.

"Yeah." Reggie nods sharply. "Whatever, wherever, as naked as you want me, I'm there."

* * *

Once I'm back in my room, it's surprisingly harder to sleep, not easier. My dorm room feels stuffy and empty. I'd barely managed to move on campus before the trickster demon brought me away from it entirely, and when I got here I only had a few things. The place mostly smells like dust and old feral magic.

Thankfully, the dreams I used to have are gone now, my sleep strangely empty of any images at all, at least when I do drift off. Feral magic no longer drips from my fingers or threatens to turn the shifters sleeping around me into uncontrolled beasts. Whatever happened in Hell, it solidified the two parts of me, witch and phoenix, so they no longer work at odds with each other.

I just wish that I knew how to help my sister.

Her eyes were so empty and soulless, but I felt the vibrancy of her spirit with my naturalistic senses. It's still there—I have to believe that. The thought of her being soulless and empty, a Husk like the Heretic, is too much to bear.

But there was a disconnect between her body and her spirit. I didn't see it at the time, as caught up as I was in simply discovering she was alive. The more I go over the memory in my mind, the clearer it becomes. I could see her spirit in its entirety, the layers of it glowing just beneath her skin, but it was like a double image. As if someone laid two clear sheets of plastic on top of each other, then moved the bottom one an inch over.

Her soul was in her body, but not quite. And there were strings on it. Strings that no doubt lead to the Heretic, who is even now grooming her, raising her, changing her.

It makes me sick. Throwing the comforter off my bed, I restlessly pad over to the door and slip my shoes on. There's a thin trail of light in the hallway from various night lights and exterior lights around campus, but no one is up at this hour; the lights are just a precaution for a population of students prone to nighttime wandering and sudden emergencies.

From what I hear, though, there hasn't been an attack on campus in months. Dani and her demons closed the door—with their lifeblood, but through some trick of magic I don't quite understand, she went into Hell and got them back. Auerbach has been laying new wards over the campus to keep more attacks from happening. The Headmaster claims a new source of intel has made it possible for them to track Grim cells more efficiently, and since fractures formed in Grim clan leadership, they're infighting too much to mount a response against the campus. The threats are quiet, for now.

Of course, I destroyed the door to Hell. Something I've been too nervous to talk to Auerbach yet. Witches will be waking up across the world, magic from the veil between our realm and the Spirit Realm quickening in their veins. Grim summonings will change, too—something that makes me queasy. I hope I haven't made the world a worse place. I have to believe that the scales will balance out, and that good will arise to fight evil wherever it flourishes.

Walking out onto the campus, I'm tempted by nature so much that I decide to take my shoes off and dig my feet into the bare grass. It's cool and slightly damp from dew; morning is still hours away, and a light mist hangs in the air. My breath doesn't quite fog in front of me, but it'll be winter again soon. So much time has passed that I can barely believe the world around me.

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