“Oh, shit!” Nightwind yelped, flying away from me and toward the other side of the room.
Dreadful’s scream started a symphony of fearful screeches in the room from all the other demons, and with each one, the spider grew in size from where it fell on my desk.
Terror froze me to the spot as I maintained eye contact with it. Its limbs moved around like shadow tendrils coming for me.
The scream in my throat only came out as a pathetic squeak.
More chaos ensued in the class as everyone screamed in fear.
“Fucking smoke,” Hemlock growled somewhere behind me. “You’re pouring out fears.”
“Grimshaw,” a sharp masculine voice scolded as they entered the room. “My classroom is not a fear buffet for you.”
“You’re all such wimps.” Grimshaw’s laugh might have sounded menacing and psychotic to everyone else, but even as I stared into the eyes of the scariest shadow spider I’d ever seen, I knew the sound was self-deprecating.
“Oh, Fates, no! Mommy, Daddy, I’ll behave, I promise!” Dreadful was crawling on her hands and knees with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please don’t take it away!”
It was then that I realized every demon in the room was seeing their own fears.
I forced out the air from my lungs before inhaling fresh oxygen.
It wasn’t real.
Grimshaw snorted. “Noble girl wants to keep her status and money.Boring. Gravesend’s fear, however…”
The spider’s dripping shadows reached for me again, and my muscles spasmed painfully from freezing further.
“Get out until you can control your fear magic. Youreekof it,” the man snarled.
I heard Grimshaw muttering curse words under his breath and his footsteps stomping out before the paralyzing fear lost its grip on my soul, and the illusion of the shadow tendril-wielding spider dissipated into thin air.
A whooshed breath fell out of me as I scrambled for my chair and put it back where I needed it to sit down. I slumped over the desk and counted my breaths as everyone else took their seats, too.
Nobody said a word, though, including Dreadful.
The man who had kicked out Grimshaw held an air of confidence as he strode back and forth in the center of the room. “I’m Ironwood, your feardemon professor for Introduction to Ceremonial Magic.”
Glowing illumination showed that he was probably in his early thirties with curly auburn hair and brown eyes. I noted a faint banana berry scent around him as he walked.
“Since Grimshaw has already taken up precious time and traumatized the majority of the class, we will skip straight to the lesson,” he said with no room for argument. “Does anyone know what ceremonial magic is?”
Dreadful’s hand shot up. “It’s used to amplify magical intent.”
He smiled at her, and I swore she blushed. “Very good. It’s most commonly used by witches and warlocks, but any supernatural can use the technique.”
Clearly, she was over the fear that had overtaken her just minutes ago.
I wasn’t as lucky. My heart was still pounding relentlessly against my rib cage.
“I’ve heard rumors that ceremonial magic can be used to summon dark magic,” some demon in the front spoke out.
Ironwood’s lips thinned into a frown. “That’s correct. Dark magic can be summoned ceremonially by any supernatural, but it doesn’t work every time. And only witches and warlockscan wield dark magic in some capacity without infection.”
“I thought dark magic had been wielded by other supernaturals in the past,” I murmured.
Ironwood’s gaze cut to me with a nod. “There is only one instance I know of with a supernatural other than a witch or warlock being infected and using it, and it was due to a matebond being broken. That supernatural was an arctic wolf, and it’s commonly thought that the rejected bond itself was bestowed because the Fates made a mistake with the pairing. However, the dark magic ritual used to break the bond had a fatal side effect. Do you know what that was?”
“The first mate to reject the bond became infected with dark magic,” I answered. “It rotted his soul and body from the inside out.”
