Rogue sniggers as she watches me bite into the treat and shakes her head. “Man, M, this is gonna be allll you. I don’t know if I can describe that shit without laughing my ass off, and she has to know.”
I chew the tasty baked good, thinking about our poor friend for a moment. We won’t be here forever, and even keeping in touch could be hard with all the crap going on. She needs reference materials and maybe… maybe something more. I pull my phone out, scowling when I remember it probably won’t work here. “Damn it.”
Kat wiggles her fingers at me. “I might be able to get you hooked in. Zavida did mine, and I don’t know if I remember exactly, but I can try to get you on the network.”
Handing it to her, I arch a brow. “Why didn’t you mention that when the guys were here?”
“Because all those anxious dicks hanging around driving us nuts would have lasted so much longer if they were all trying to get tech support, I bet.” Rogue winks and Kat nods in agreement. “They had to go, or we couldn’t chat.”
As long as she can get me online, I’m going to email that crotchety bookstore owner and see if I can hook Kat up with some better reading material—fiction and non-fiction.
Hopefully, this works.
Seventeen
IGGY
The demons lead us to a fairly barren part of their campus that has two features of note. One, a blocked-off gateway to what I assume are ‘The Wastes’ as they’ve referred to it. I’m happy not to be headed in that direction because it’s dark, spooky looking, and I guarantee it’s filled with awful shit. Intellectual curiosity aside, I know a horror movie basement when I see one, even if it’s an old iron gate.
“Tell us about this house and the land fenced in behind it,” I say as I tear my eyes away from the bad place. “Who lives here and why is it so far from campus proper?”
The demon prince sighs, looking at Lucas and me specifically. “This is the home of an ancient demon called The Keeper. He was a war hero and took this position at Discordia to avoid staying in the army once it was over. It wasn’t his first war, nor even his fifth, though the last one was the biggest, as we’ve said. He works with animals, hell beasts, and students who are gifted with familiars by the Moirai.”
Lucas looks puzzled, and I lean in to murmur, “He means the Fates; he’s just being fancy for no reason.”
“Dude, be cool. We know you’re a royal, and this is your realm. No need to be overly showy, yeah?” The bear gives Jasper a pointed expression, and I blink, hoping that will not get us toasted.
“Jasper hates naming them in the open air,” the Kitsune pipes up as his tails swish. “They’re not very interested in Hell, usually, and they’re really more active in other realms, no matter what you call them. It’s his way of giving them the finger, I think.”
“I can speak, Zav,” the dragon drawls wryly as he rolls his eyes. “But yes. It was not to rub anything in your faces, surface dwellers. I simply dislike believing that anything a cackling group of people who enjoy screwing with everyone’s lives prefer is something to avoid. It feels like… what do they call them again?”
“Mean girls.”
That hits me just right, and I snort. Only a demon prince would accuse the weavers of the universal tapestry of being ‘mean girls’; no one else would dare. “You think they alter things to amuse themselves and punish people?”
“Duh,” Lucas says before Jasper can answer. “Why else do good people suffer and assholes like the ones we saw at that stupid meeting thrive? Don’t be dense, Iggy.”
I don’t think it’s quite so simple, but since I don’t have the actual answers, I let it go.
“Regardless of their true intent, they have more power than a great deal of beings, and pissing them off feels… ill-advised.” I give the lizard another serious look, but he waves his hand dismissively.
“Cultural difference, right, Gemini?”
Damon looks away from the fenced-in land, his brow furrowed. “Why don’t I see any animals if this is where he has them?”
Guess he’s not taking a side in this little spat.
“Because Arces isverypowerful, and you cannot see them if you don’t have the capacity to be chosen for a familiar. It’s a blended magic he learned in his travels through various realms before the last war.”
Lucas rubs his hands together, looking excited. “Kinda excited, to be honest. Sounds like this guy is mega old and has seen a kajillion times more than me. I can’t wait to pick his brain.”
“We’re not interviewing The Keeper,” Zavida says ruefully as he shoots the bear an apologetic smile. “He will let us into the fields, and we’re going to poke around there, plus the shelter, for anything that tweaks our intuition.”
“Aw, man…”
Jasper chuckles as he approaches the door to knock on it firmly in a rapid pattern. “Perhaps another time, young bear. This visit is about searching for a place that would appeal to anyone hoping to hide things in a less frequented place on campus. Demons don’t come out here unless they have a familiar or someone has identified them as a possible.”
I scratch my chin, nodding as his explanation resonates. “That’s actually a pretty solid idea. Not that you can’t have them, but if I were going to enchant something and hide it at our school, I’d seek the least trafficked area.”
