“I lost track of Radames and Lola after Adrian came back from the dead,” I said. “Iman was just going to not shift, so they didn’t connect her to the cat, but they would have to know Adrian can ID him as the one who killed him.”
“Adrian must have magic dick because everyone was just so happy he wasn’t really dead, no one asked who killed him,” Liam said.
“Arsehole, everyone watched you bury your switchblade between his eyes,” Lucian said.
“Zombie, dipshit. A dead man literally crawled out of his grave. It was justified, and he didn’t stay dead. I meant the first time. I only thought he might actually be the reincarnation of Jesus after I killed him.”
“Mr. O’Breen, this is a magical school and you are all reincarnations. The logical explanation was that it was a hint who Adrian was,” Headmaster Mykene said.
“If you were wrong, he might have eaten Sage’s brains and I would have had to kill everyone here in my grief.”
“You’ve rotted your brain with television. Zombies don’t eat brains. They are generally slaves created by magic users and it’s forbidden, so the chances of you coming across one are pretty slim.”
“He had no way of knowing that since our time in the library has been devoted to the Forsaken Ones. I thought he was the Restless Dead since his shade didn’t come to the veil,” Khalid said.
“I’d love to know where a phoenix’s shade goes when they die so I’m going to fight through his army of adoring fans at the tavern and ask,” Professor Gefn hummed.
“That would be a fascinating.”
“I didn’t scream the second time Adrian died,” I said.
I felt it the first time and knew someone died. The only reason I knew Adrian died the second was being I was standing right there.
“I don’t think you’ll feel it if Adrian happens to die again. I think his first death unlocked his magical powers after he was reborn. So many people have tried to cheat death and as far as I know, only a few have succeeded and only for a short while. Apep couldn’t be killed by his contemporaries, but he eventually died in Fairy because he’s reincarnated and killing my students.”
If Adrian had a weakness, then Radames and Lola did, too. I couldn’t help butfeelAdrian was the answer to stopping them for good.
No one thought it was a good idea to figure out where Radames and Lola went until we knew how to kill them. They said they would be more dangerous than ever now that Adrian could expose Radames. Khalid said Radames could spin Iman seeing him turn into a snake by claiming to be the gender bent reincarnation of Wadjet, a cobra goddess. We knew hewasn’tWadjet because he tried to hurt Iman for seeing him shift and ended up killing Adrian.
“Could we be wrong about him being Apep?” I asked. “I never felt weird around him. Professor Mykene said his father is a Coptic priest and kind of hard core. What if he knows nothing about any of this like I do? Some of the other students treatedMazen a certain way for being Set. What if heisWadjet, but thinks he’s Apep and lost his shit when someone found out?”
Mazen was gone. As soon as he laid eyes on Iman, he was out. As much as Alexios and Ivar said they didn’t think Mazen could share, Mazen seemed fine with it and it was the two of them that didn’t want to share her with Mazen. Ari was trying to play peacemaker and Iman looked like she wasn’t handling all the attention well at all and wanted to turn into a cat again.
“It’s entirely possible, but as soon as everyone got to know Mazen and he stopped acting like a psychopath because of Lola, everyone started treating him like he was his own person. Alexios and Ivar don’t like him because of his own actions, not because he was Set in a former life. Wadjet was a protector god and appears in the creation myths, so Radames never coming across her would be weird. It’s also would be weird for the son of a Coptic priest to see two completely different snake gods in Egyptian myth and wrongly assume he’s the bad one.”
“No, you’re right. Let’s just celebrate this one win and get back to work after,” I said.
The tavern was bigger than any bar I’d visited when I was backpacking through Europe and it was packed to the gills when I got there. I was only ever allowed to listen to Christian singers that Blue Matthews approved of. If they sang Christian music but did anything like get divorced, I was no longer allowed to listen to them.
I had started expanding my musical tastes by listening to local bands on my travels. I saw a band in Scotland that everyone showed up to see and they nearly didn’t let me in because it was a fire hazard. There were more people here tonight. I guess I underestimated how much Adrian was loved here.
Old Jingo had the piano and a set of bongos out. There were already people playing. It wasn’t Liam’s guitar, but there was now a guitar out there, too. I was pretty sure the throngsof bodies in the center were where Adrian was sitting with his mates and we had no hope of getting anywhere close to them, but Morgana, Elliot, and Petros found us.
“So, we managed to catch Adrian before the mob took him and he’s requesting a celebratory song from the Horned God. Also, Iman may end up biting someone,” Morgana said.
“Any song or can I pick?”
“I’m not sure what Adrian was thinking, but he didn’t specify.”
“He was thinking I have a playlist foreveryoccasion and have a song on deck that is so perfectly Adrian, even if he’s never heard it before.”
“Yeah, I’ve picked Adrian’s pockets before and he keeps someweirdshit in there. He’s basically a walking erection who takes the piss out of literally anything. I’ve got playlists, too, and I don’t have a song that’s Adrian.”
“I do. Out of the way, pets. I’ve a mind to sing,” Liam said, elbowing his way to the front.
The crowd parted for him because I think everyone except Lola loved it when Liam graced everyone with a song. I knew he played the guitar, but I didn’t know he played the piano, too. He sat at the upright and launched into some song that was quite obviously meant to be sung by averyhorny woman. Morgana threw back her head and laughed.
“I know that one. It’sBring on the Menfrom the musicalJekyll and Hyde.”
