“Cells,” I repeated, then burst out laughing. “Of course Sanctuary has a dungeon. I bet it’s for super-kinky sexy times.”
Sunny fell back on the bed. “They’re not going to know what to do with you.”
“No one ever has,” I agreed. “Not in any realm.”
Chapter 15
Feather
Sunny came back to my room the next morning with a note from Righteous. He had important meetings all day and couldn’t start my sex lessons, or whatever. But he’d set up a seminar schedule for me. Sunny’s job was to take me to my first class, and pick me up after.
“Purity for Beginners?” I read as we walked down a corridor I’d never explored on the second floor. This part of Sanctuarywas the tiniest bit cold, and the whole area had a strange scent, like someone had used way too much bleach on the floors. Or bleach and ammonia combined. There were invisible fumes. According to Sunny, that was just the way things smelled in this wing.
She snorted when I made a face. “Yeah, there are six classes on Purity, and this is the prerequisite. You’re going to hate it. Your lecturer is a Guide who used to be called Prosperity. They’re a real tight-ash. You need to sit up straight, speak when spoken to, pay attention, and… pretty much whatever you would naturally do?” I nodded, waiting. “Do the opposite.”
She hooked her arms under my armpits and grunted as she took off, lifting me like a sack of potatoes in front of her. Sure enough, at the top of the vaulted ceiling, there were a whole bunch of white-on-white doors, just set up there, with no floor around or anything.
“What’s with this?” I asked, adjusting my plain white toga. I’d opted not to wear the racy miniskirt I’d sequined the night before. I’d get the lay of the land first,thenwow them with my fashion sense. “Why no stairs? Or floors, for that matter?”
“These classrooms aren’t for Novices,” she explained breathlessly. “After first missions, you just do group in the Assembly Halls downstairs.”
“I don’t have to do group therapy anymore?” This was the best news I’d had all day.
“Nice try. Group’s mandatory for all of us. But to attend seminars, you’re supposed to have wings. They never counted on a Protector having stunted baby wings.”
“They’re not stunted; they’re petite,” I grumbled as she pressed one hand into the pad by the door. It slid open, and she practically dumped me inside the classroom.
“I’ll be back for you in four hours. Try not to get into trouble.”
Before she could fly off, I called back, “They don’t really have a dungeon in Sanctuary, do they? Like, I’m sure they have sex dungeons. You’re all a big bag full of deviants. But nottorturedungeons.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’ll talk about it later.” Ugh, I hated that.
I turned and examined the room. It was about the same size as a classroom on Earth, built to fit around twenty-five students, or at least that’s how many plush, golden cushions were arranged on the three levels of risers. There was a podium at the front, a raised marble circle, but no whiteboard or desk. I was early, and only two other Protectors were there. One was a stranger, and I waved hello across the room, but the other was familiar.
“Hey, Feather. I heard you were back in Sanctuary.” I forced a smile. It was Vigor, a guy I’d met at The Merge, Sanctuary’s sex club—not that anyone would admit that was what it really was. This guy had gotten pretty handsy on the dance floor, and the only good part of that night had been seeing him bleeding out the nose, courtesy of Righteous’s fist.
“Hey, Vigor,” I said weakly, almost groaning when he walked up the risers to me, slumping down on the cushion next to mine. “I thought you were older.” The other students were swooping through the door, most of them giving me startled looks, a couple almost crashing into each other midair.
“I am older.” He let one arm fall to the back of my cushion in a classic sleaze-bro move, and leaned in. “But I hear you like older guys.” The words came out on an exhalation that smelled ever so faintly of a horrific perfume combining odor of dead fish with a soupçon of midsummer-port-a-john, and finishing notes of industrial toilet cleaner.
“Whoa, what is that funky smell?” I almost fell off my cushion as I tried to get away from it.
His face twisted up and he looked around, glaring at the students nearby. “It wasn’t me.” The lie was obvious in his voice.
“Was that a fart?” I demanded. “Are you trying to blame your fart on someone else? Dude, it came out of your mouth!” When a few others tittered, he clenched his jaw and practically threw himself off his cushion, rushing toward the teacher’s spot.
While he’d been talking, a few more students had arrived, and they all stared as he whispered something furiously to the golden-robed Guide who had appeared at the front of the room. The Guide gestured to the wall behind the podium, and Vigor slammed his hand against a small rectangle there that released a hidden door, then slipped out of the room.
I felt sort of bad for embarrassing the guy, even if he was gross. But then an ebony-skinned Protector with sweeping golden wings and a close-cropped head of gorgeous dark curls plopped down on the cushion he’d vacated, and waved a hand in the air. “I can’t believe you actually mentioned his smell. That was amazing.” She stuck her hand out. “I’m Delight. Call me Del.” I took her hand and she shook it up and down three times, then crossed her legs underneath her.
“I’m Feather,” I began, but she cut me off.
“Oh, sweets, everybody knows who you are. Class starts in seconds, or I’d pump you for information on what it’s like to merge with a High Angelus—does his penis really shoot sparks? When he comes, is it like liquid nitrogen cold, or molten lava hot? Anyway,” she continued while I gaped, “sit up for Guide Prosperity if you don’t want to land in the shit on your first day.”
With that, the loquacious stranger turned her head, adopted a fascinated, serious expression, and hissed at me out of the corner of her mouth. I imitated her, realizing the Guide was watching us.
“It seems my teaching assistant had to leave precipitously,” the Guide said from underneath their hooded robe. A straythought about how all the Guides in Sanctuary looked like they’d answer to Darth Something flitted through my mind before their words focused me. “Today, we will be wrapping up this half of our seminar on Purity for Beginners. Truth, you’re first. Tell the assembled the three most important strictures about Protectors and Purity.”
