“I’m not an instructor, Aaryn…”

  “I beg to differ. Ever since I took you on, I’ve watched you become something of a leader. Those prospects you were with look up to you, they listen to you. You have a natural charisma, and a knack with people.”

  “Go figure.”

  “Right, so go and use that skill. I don’t want to have to stop her from escaping again. That kind of oppression is only going to push her further away from us.”

  I nodded. “Alright, I’ll go and talk to her.”

  “Thank you. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

  Aaryn walked off, disappearing into the mist like a ghost. I looked around at the wispy white mantle surrounding me. “Me, an instructor,” I said to myself, shaking my head. “That woman is insane.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It wasn’t a surprise Six hadn’t managed to get far. There were two guards posted at her room, and these guys weren’t prospects, either; they were members of the douche squad. Maybe they were new, I’d never seen them before, but they were armed, and wearing shades. Indoors.

  I walked up to them. “Gentlemen,” I said, nodding.

  One of them raised his eyebrow over his shades. “Who are you?” he asked.

  Rude. “I’m here to talk to Six. Didn’t Aaryn tell you?”

  They looked at each other. “We answer to Draven, not Aaryn. We’ve been asked not to let anyone in or out of that room.”

  I cocked an eyebrow now, and folded my arms across my chest. “Well, then. How about we get Draven down here and you can tell him how you’re blocking me from doing what I’ve been asked to do.”

  “Like he’s gonna give a shit about what we say to a fucking prospect. Get lost.”

  I tapped my collar. “Gold prospect, or can’t you see the stripe?”

  “I could give a shit about your stripe,” one of them said, and he lunged as if to shove me away. I grabbed his arm, spun around him, and pulled it up against his back. He groaned loudly as his elbow started to strain. The other went to grab me, but I round-house kicked him against the chest and sent him staggering back into a wall.

  “My name is Seline,” I growled into the ear of the guy I had in my grip. “You’re probably too stupid or too new to know who I am, but you’re going to have to get used to my name because I’m not someone you want to fuck with.”

  The guy I’d kicked recovered and came to grab me again, this time with a sword drawn. Using my other hand, I drew my own dagger and effortlessly parried his strike, sending his sword flying out of his hand in the process. I aimed the tip of the weapon at the disarmed douchebag. “I’m willing to call this a misunderstanding if you two idiots don’t try and attack me again.”

  The guard put his hands up. The other cried mercy. I let him go. He turned around, cradling his arm. “Alright, fine,” he said, “Go inside. But you’ve got five minutes.”

  “I’ll have however long I want, and you’ll make sure no one else gets into that room. Got it?”

  The guards grumbled at each other. I took that grumbling as consent and allowed myself into Six’s room. She must have heard the commotion because she was already sitting on her bed, pushed right up against the corner wall.

  Her bangs almost covered her sharp eyes, brown and flecked with burning amber. Her black hair wasn’t matted and dirty anymore, but it hadn’t dried right so it was all over the place. On her back she had a brand-new set of clothes; a black t-shirt, ripped up black skinny jeans, and boots.

  She looked ready to strike, like a coiled snake.

  I stretched one hand toward her. “It’s alright,” I said, letting the door shut behind me. “Those guys are assholes, I had to make sure to teach them a thing or two about getting in my way.”

  Six’s breathing was heavy, her attention focused entirely on me. She was feral, almost. I’d need to be careful. Deciding it was a good idea to keep my distance, I stayed by the bedroom door. That probably put a couple of feet between us. Enough for her to be comfortable, I hoped.

  “I heard you tried to get out last night,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Where were you going to go?”

  Six continued to stare at me, her lips so tightly pressed together they were going white.

  “Were you going to go back to New York? I can tell you, we’re a long way from the city out here… you’d still be walking.”

  “Flying,” she said.

  “Flying… sure, but you’d still be doing that right now. And it would be cold, and dark, and probably wet too. Last night was cold as hell. Did you want to go back to the place where we found you?”

  “No.”

  “I get it… I was like you once.”

  “You were never like me.”

  “No, it’s true. When I first came here, I hated it here. I wanted my own bed, my own house, my own life. I felt like a prisoner here.”

  “I am a prisoner.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re not. You’re a guest.”

  “Then why can’t I leave?”

  “Because it’s not safe out there, Six… it just isn’t. Not for you, or for me.”

  “I don’t need your protection.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. You look like a tough girl, someone who’s probably been in more scraps than I’ve been in, but you have to see that we’re only trying to do what’s best for you.”

  She narrowed her eyes, and the spots of amber in them began to glow. “How can you know what’s best for me? You don’t know me. You don’t know where I’ve come from.”

  I walked a little closer to her, reaching the edge of her bed but not moving any further. “I don’t,” I said, “I know you’ve lived in New York for a while. I know I found you chained up. I know you’re a… fiend.”

  “I hate that word.”

  I angled my head to the side. “Hate it?”

  “I’m Aevian, like you.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you are… I have to tell you, I’m real sketchy on everything that happened before I fell through the rifts. I forgot everything that happened to me. Everything. I literally had no idea I was even an Aevian until I got here a few months ago. But now I do, and I feel like I’m a better person for it.”

  Six’s stare softened a little. Her lips unclenched, they were chapped and cracked, like she hadn’t been drinking. It was now that I noticed the tray of food she’d been given. She’d knocked it over and spilled all the food and her water onto the floor.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, but her eyes had quickly flitted to the mess she’d made on the floor.

  I decided not to wait for a reply that probably wasn’t going to come. “Siren,” I said aloud, and a moment later, a green cloud of mist pushed into the room and began to take shape. Six panicked and scrambled further against the wall, like she thought she could maybe become water and seep through it if she only pressed herself hard enough against it.

  “Hello, Seline,” Siren’s ghostly form smiled at me. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I need to have water and a fresh plate of food brought up to Six’s room right away.”

  Siren nodded. “Certainly, Seline.”

  The magical construct burst into that same misty green cloud she’d been birthed from and disappeared into nothingness, leaving glittering green sparkles floating in the air.

  “What was that?” Six asked, breathing heavily again.

  “Siren is a friend,” I said, “She helps us all around the castle with whatever we need. So, if you’re hungry, you only have to call her and ask, and she’ll send food to you.”

  Six swallowed several times, her throat working inaudibly. I watched her relax again and take more of a seated position. “Books?” Six asked.

  “Books too.”

  She brushed her hair out of her face and tucked some of it behind her ear. It was good to see her face again. She’d showered since she’d been here, allowing her true, pretty self to shine through. Still, she looked terrified. Something had really spooked her, and I was starting to wonder if what had happened last night was an action or a reaction.

  “I…” she trailed off, then she shook her head.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t belong here.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I’m not like any of the other people here.”

  “Really? You’re not lost and alone? You didn’t fall through the rifts, lose all your memory, and wind up living on the streets like a rat?”

  “I am Aevian, like you, but I’m also…” she shook her head.

  “Is there another name for your people? If there is, I don’t know it.”

  “No one does because no one cares to ask.”

  “I’m asking…”

  Six’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Serakon.”

  “Serakon? That’s… a beautiful name.”

  “I wish more people used it. We aren’t all fiends. I’m not, anyway.”

  I shook my head. “People have a lot of notions about fie—the Serakon. They say, on the other side of the rifts, their kind are brutal overseers who want to dominate the world, or destroy it if they can’t have it. I don’t know if any of that is true, but what I know is that I’ve met a couple of them in my time and they haven’t been the nicest of people.”

  “Prejudice is a dangerous thing. If I had judged you when I first saw you, we would not be talking right now.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why’s that?”

  “All those things that are said about the Serakon are said about the Aevians. Bloodthirsty, power-hungry killers who will stop at nothing in their quest to dominate all they touch.”

  “I guess we really are birds of a feather, then.”

  “Yes… we are. The only difference is, you look like angels, while we look like demons.”

  I turned my eyes to the floor, feeling the sting of Six’s words. She hadn’t meant any harm by what she’d said, I knew that, but… “I don’t look like an angel,” I said.

  She cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  I shook my head. “My wings don’t work. Others of my kind may look like angels, but I’m… missing something. Incomplete. All the time I’ve been here I’ve had to live with other Aevians, train with them, watch them spread their wings and fly… watch them do something I should be able to do, but can’t. I’ve never truly felt like I belong with them, but I try every day, I fight for my place, because no one’s going to fight for me. Looking at you, I can tell you’re a fighter too… we’re more alike than you think.”

  A long pause hung in the air, the kind of pause that let you hold a full few thoughts before it was broken. I thought about Felice and her aerial acrobatics. I thought about Fate and her wings of mist, Draven and his wings of night. Mine were gold and sparkling, but they were wings of shadow; not real.

  I would never let anyone see just how much that hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your wings…”

  I shrugged. “You play the hand you’re dealt.”

  “What?”

  “Poker… you play poker?”

  “What’s poker?”

  “Yeah, fair enough.” I took a deep breath. “Listen, I know you’re probably going to go a bit stir crazy in here, so I had a proposition for you.”

  “What kind of proposition?”

  I held her eyes. “Let me train you.”

  “Train me?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, let me help you learn how to fight, how to use magic. We could even learn about our histories from the library. There’s tons of books about the old world in there.”

  “Books written by people who hate my kind?”

  “I don’t know… but you could probably learn a lot about our kind regardless. More than what you’d learn if you decided to go back to New York right now—which I’m willing to let you do.”

  She frowned at me, cautious. “You’d… what?”

  “I’m giving you a choice. Leave, flee the fortress and go… wherever you want. Do whatever you want. Live wherever you want. Or stay, but if you stay, we’re going to have to start trusting each other—and you’ve got to agree to let me train you.”

  “And then I’ll be forced to join your Order?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll make sure you don’t have to join if you don’t want to, but if you do, the option is open.”

  She examined me from where she sat, her eyes glowing slightly. Strands of her hair fell in front of her face. She brushed them out of her eyes and tucked them behind her ear. “I won’t try to escape,” she said.

  “Awesome. We’ll start today.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to train.”

  “No, that’s the condition. You can leave right now, or you can stay and train with me.”

  Another thoughtful pause. “Will I have to train with anyone else?”

  “Look, I’m not an instructor, not really, but if you only want to train with me, I’ll talk to the big guys and make sure.”

  Six frowned, her eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Fine,” she said, “I accept.”

  I stood and extended my hand toward her. “Seal it with a shake.”

  Cautious, careful, regarding my hand like it was a snake about to bite her, she slowly reached for me and shook. I smiled, turned around, and headed for the door but I didn’t leave. I cocked my head around my shoulder.

  “You like to wear black, right?”

  Six’s eyebrows both arched up. She scanned her clothes and then looked at me again. “I prefer white, these are just still dirty.”

  I grinned. “I’ll be back for you in a little while.”

  Leaving her alone, I ordered the guards to go and fetch her some food and a black jumpsuit in her size. “Just black; no bronze, silver, or gold collar.”

  The guards grumbled about not being servants, I didn’t think they liked my bossing them around, but they both did as I asked. That meant when I left Six’s room, I left her alone and unguarded, her door unlocked. Every possible chance existed that when I came back, she’d have left the castle. I could only hope I’d gotten through to her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Talking to Six had brought up a few things that I wanted to deal with before going into training with her. I decided to go and find Draven in his quarters. That was where he spent most of the hours of the day, since his eyes were sensitive to sunlight. That was one of the curses that belonged to the House of Night.

  By all accounts he should be spending the daylight hours asleep, but it fell on his shoulders to keep the Order running smoothly. He basically lived in a constant state of discomfort, and that was something I could respect. When I reached the door to his room, I knocked a couple of times, and waited. He opened the door after a few seconds.

  “Seline,” he said, looking… surprised to see me.

  “Hey, I hope you’re not too busy,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’m getting a little work done, but it’s okay. Please, come in.”

  Draven stepped aside and allowed me into his room. As always, it was dark in here. The only light that made it into his room were streams of sunlight that managed to find cracks in the blinds on his windows. The darkness made my chest tighten, but Draven went around lighting candles for me to feel a little more comfortable.

  As the room brightened, I started to relax and I noticed what he was working on. There were tools on his workbench, and large pieces of metal he seemed to have been hammering into shape. I didn’t know what he was making, but it looked complicated.

  When he was finished lighting candles, he walked over to his desk and threw a cloth over it.

  “Top secret?” I asked.

  “For now…” he said, “I have a thing about where and when I display my creations.”

  “I get that.” I walked over to his bed, but didn’t sit down. Instead I hovered over it, awkwardly, until he gestured for me to sit. I did, and it was comfortable as all hell. Was it a feather bed? I didn’t know, but it felt like I was sitting on a firm cloud.

  Draven, meanwhile, went back to his desk and sat at his chair. He turned to the side to look at me. “So, what can I do for you?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, things are quiet here for now, I’m working on my training, and I’ve even convinced Six to join me.”

  “Join you?”

  “I’m going to train her.”

  Draven grinned, playfully. “Oh, so you’re an instructor now? I thought you were going to become an enforcer.”

  “I’m definitely not an instructor, but it looks like she trusts me. She probably trusts me more than anyone else at the fortress. While she’s here, I guess she should feel like she’s part of something bigger than herself. It worked to bring me out of my shell, didn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty sure that shell of yours hasn’t quite been fully shed yet.”

  “Okay, probably not, but I’m doing better than when I arrived here.”

  He nodded. “Yes, you are. When you got here, we were all assholes who had kidnapped you and taken you away from the only life you’d ever known.”

  “That’s because you were totally kidnappers who’d taken me out of the only life I’d ever known. I was seriously happy where I was.”

  Draven’s eyebrows arched together. “Happy?”

  “Happy is probably a strong word. I was content. I had a home, I had my friend. I didn’t need anyone else, or anything else… at least, that’s what I thought. Thank you for not giving up on me.”

  “I didn’t exactly give you many choices. I probably could’ve handled things a little better from the start.”

  “Probably… but you were playing the part of alpha-male asshole. You did the job beautifully, by the way.”

  “That sounded like a compliment, but it wasn’t, was it?”

  I shook my head, smiling gleefully. “Nope.”

  “Noted.” He paused, narrowed his eyes. “Did you need something?”