Page 12 of This Violent Light
Stab a witch. You’ll be the one with a knife wound in your side, blood pouring over the floor.
Strangle a harpy. You’ll have a crushed windpipe and a bruised throat.
Murder a fae. You’ll be the one lifeless, crumpled to the stone while they go about their day.
I force myself to cross the line, and Beatrice again keeps an easy pace. She’s still talking about the initiates, highlighting a few with extraordinary potential, but I’ve stopped listening.
Now, I’m busy studying the neutral territory.
It looks more like the human world, like Aberlena, than anywhere else in the Echo. Where the Night Realm is characterized by daunting estates, magnificent stone structures, and elaborate fountains, the neutral territory is overrun with stucco buildings and small storefronts. Here, everything is labeled and neat and orderly. The homes have numbers. The streets have signs. They’ve even got rules posted outside their parks and shopping centers.
The neutral territory is undoubtedly the least interesting place in the Echo, save for the fact it houses the Paragon. A beautiful and impenetrable building, surrounded by massive pillars and covered in stone gargoyles. It is the mirror image of Aberlena University and the only known door between the Echo and the human world.
Here, one can travel between the two as easily as crossing a bridge.
I jog up the steps, pausing beneath a particularly anguished gargoyle. His face is frozen in dismay, eyes wide and unseeing. I force my attention away from the man, to Beatrice, who stares at me with her bottom lip pouted.
“It might be better if?—”
“Get me forty,” I say, cutting her off. “And ready them for war.”
I don’t give her the chance to reply. I leave her standing beneath the gargoyles and duck into the Paragon Building.
4
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT
GRACE
I’ve always loved high heels. There’s something empowering about them, and not just for the added height. Every time I wear them, I feel like I’m shouting to the world:that’s right, I can do it better than you, and I’ll do it wearing these six-inch platforms!
Despite today’s red-bottom heels, I don’t feel at all empowered. I just finished my second interview of the day, and I am confident I won’t get either job. The first—a position at the local paper—was a long shot, and I crashed and burned accordingly. The second one though—a cashier position at a nearby grocery store—should have been easy. I figured they’d offer me a job on the spot.
Instead, I fumbled my way through an interview with a guy years younger than I am. The whole time, he kept raising an unimpressed eyebrow. At the end, he said something along the lines of, “we’ll let you know either way.”
Either way?
Yeah, I definitely won’t be getting the job.
My heel catches on the sidewalk, and I stumble. I curseunder my breath, then glance over each shoulder to make sure no one saw me. Shifting my bags in my arms, I continue walking toward the apartment. To make up for the awkwardness of Friday night, I promised to take Tessa wherever she wanted for dinner.
Naturally, she didn’twantto go anywhere. She wanted takeout Chinese food, hand-delivered by yours truly. So I’ve got two hefty bags of teriyaki chicken, fried rice, broccoli and beef, and a large container of egg drop soup. It smells delicious, but I’m pretty sure at least one of the containers is leaking, dripping as I make my way across town.
My phone buzzes in my purse, and I have to shuffle the bags again to answer it, putting Tessa on speaker.
“We aresoeven,” I tell her before she can say anything. “I am currently walking the least-maintained sidewalk I’ve ever seen, and this food weighs about a million pounds.”
“Did you get the egg rolls?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I got the egg rolls and the soup and the rice and the noodles and whatever the hell else was on your list. It’s your fault if I can’t afford rent this month, by the way.”
There’s a momentary quiet.
“The interviews didn’t go well, I take it?” She’s mocking me. I might not be able to see her, but I’m quickly accepting that my new roommate is sarcastic, blunt, and a little bit mean.
I shouldn’t like her, but of course I do. I like everyone, and I’m pretty sure that’ll get me killed someday.
“You can pick the movie,” she says when I don’t reply. “Even if it’s one of those stupid romantic comedies.”
