I swallowed. “One of the archdemons…” I said, letting the words trail off as her head tilted to the side in thought.
Her face was carefully blank as she studied me, all traces of anger gone from her features. “Do you know which one?” she asked, and I shook my head.
I didn’t know his name. Didn’t know which of the creatures I’d bound to myself. “The winged one with the Enochian tattoos on his chest. Red eyes,” I said, offering the simplest explanation I could. I didn’t think my mother would have noted the way his deep brown hair was the same length as mine, pulled back into a bun at the back of his head. I didn’t think she would have noted the strength in his square jaw, the way the harsh lines of his features were brutal and beautiful all at once, his eyebrows two angry slashes that had softened for me.
“Beelzebub,” she said, picking up her pen and using it to draw Enochian symbols on her notepad. They were the same ones I’d seen on the archdemon’s chest the night before, and I nodded when I recognized them. “Did he seem affected by your song?” She lowered her pen slowly, as if she didn’t dare to move too quickly.
I thought back to the night before, wondering if I’d misread the situation. If I had merely assumed that he was under my spell when he wasn’t affected, but the memory of him calling mesongbirdwas a whisper in my mind, the sound of his deep, guttural voice like a caress on my skin.
I shivered in response to the sound of it, remembering the way it had felt in that moment. I’d never felt such a thing in my life,never heard a voice so deep and harsh but somehow gentle before. The way he’d reached for me when I tried to leave, seeming at war with himself for a moment, before he respected my wishes.
He’d let me leave.
“I think so,” I said, answering her question as best as I could. I couldn’t make myself share the nickname with her, feeling as if that was something better kept between he and I for the time being. It felt intimate, like something he hadn’t given freely but that I’d stolen from him with the magic in my voice.
A name I hadn’t earned, that didn’t need to be claimed.
My mother’s face spread into a broad grin the likes of which I’d never seen, making her face transform into the beauty I knew she was capable of when she was surrounded by people she liked.
I just wasn’t among them.
“Oh, Margot, that’s wonderful!” she said, standing and stepping around the side of her desk. She came to me, cupping my face in gentle, soft hands so tenderly that everything within me clenched. I wanted to retreat from the unnatural touch, from the glee and pride in her face.
I’d done something horrible, andthatwas the thing that made my mother happy.
“It is?” I asked, swallowing back the venom in my words. Arguing with her that it was monstrous would do me no good, not with the way she stared at me like I’d given her hope.
“You’ve ensnared Lucifer’s second-in-command. If you and Willow can work together, then this could give us an edge. You’ll have Beelzebub wrapped around your finger in no time if you keep singing for him now that you have him on the hook. I’ll be sure to let the other Reds know that the song works, and maybe we can pull the others under our control as well,” she said, trailing off as she left me to return to the papers she needed to grade, the moment passed.
“But that’s horrible,” I said, thinking of how dangerous the situation was. If Beelzebub became too addicted to my magic,if I brought him further under my spell, it was only a matter of time before he wanted toacton that spell. “You’re talking about intentionally taking away their free will. I didn’t mean to do this, but if they seek the archdemons out…”
“Oh, Margot, don’t be so dramatic,” she said finally, waving her hand to dismiss me. I’d served my purpose, and now she was done with me. “They’re archdemons. They don’t have feelings.”
I nodded as I grabbed my book bag off my desk, retreating from the room as quickly as I could. My mother might have claimed it didn’t matter because they lacked feelings, but I knew well enough to know that even someone broken and devoid of warmth would feel the violation that this was.
I certainly had.
3
MARGOT
I hurried to the right, curving my way up the staircase without so much as glancing at the students who had gathered near the doorway as I passed. I took the stairs more quickly than any of the others, my book bag bouncing where it hung by my hip. I pushed myself to skip steps as my legs spread to accommodate the longer stride, hugging the wall to keep anyone from seeing up my skirt near the railing.
The need to push, to make my muscles strain with the speed that I sprinted up those steps was so overwhelming that I couldn’t have hid it if I’d wanted to. Making my body hurt was the only way to make myselffeelwhat I knew should have hurt, the reminder of my childhood and the lack of approval from my mother not really striking me in the way they once had.
The numbness was a plague upon my soul, haunting me so much that I wondered what was wrong with me and how I could fix it so often that I’d lost track.
But I couldn’t, and the only thing I could do was work my body until I felt like I might give in. The woods and the grounds weren’t safe, hadn’t been even before the archdemons had come, but now they were even less so and I’d have to risk my life in order to take the chance and find my outlet.
I wasn’t at that point yet, so I raced the four flights of stairs up to the library at the top, my lungs heaving by the time I reachedit. I paused outside the door, gathering my breath and trying to compose myself for a brief moment. Sweat slicked down my spine, tickling over the place where I knew my tattoo marked me. My mother had been furious the first day I showed up to class with it covered in the sheen of a healing ointment, the ink fresh and skin still a little swollen.
Reds did not participate in body modification of any kind as a rule. Personal expression like that was seen as a diminishing aspect of our objective attractiveness, making it so that our prospective partners would either love it or hate it. Most witches could not create something from nothing, and that meant that remaining attractive to as many people as possible was an advantage in the eyes of our elders.
My mother hated my shorter hair for the same reason, because it was an act I’d done in a direct rebellion of her wishes. I refused to allow it to grow past my shoulders because of how much I knew she hated it. The piercings I hid beneath my top that I’d foolishly done myself were another silent protest against the rules placed upon us by a too-strict Coven that wanted to erase any and all traces of our individuality. It didn’t matter to me that no one else would see them if I had my way.
I hadn’t done them for anyone but myself.
I sighed, turning to face the library door and stopping suddenly whenheappeared in front of it and blocked my path.
