“Correct.”
“But what about a school map, a tour, orientation?” I cried, thinking of the sheer scope of this place, and my task to find Dora somewhere within it. “Is this really how they welcome new students?”
“Were you expecting a parade?”
Sighing, I crossed the hall to the—
“Agh!” I choked, clapping my hand over my nose. “What is that smell!”
“Urine,” Sabrina dropped like it was no big deal.
“Urine?! Someone peed on the keys? Why!”
If a snake could shrug, she’d be doing it. “Why not?”
My jaw worked, head shaking. I looked around for anything I could use to cover my hand, but there was nothing except my underwear.
“Oh no,” I breathed. “Oh no, oh no, not that.”
“What are you babbling about?”
I groaned, grimacing hard. “Sabrina, are you sure no one can see anything but a man when they look at me?”
“Of course I’m sure. Lord Lucifer is a master of lies, cunning, and deception,” she spouted off so proudly, you’d have thought she was speaking of a child who won the science fair. “He himself crafted your disguise. All the lords and masters of hell could try to break through your glamour, but none will succeed unless you allow them to.”
“Well, then...” I popped off my bra. “Here goes...”
I WANTED TO FIND Adark corner and just fade away by the time I found the entrance to the dorm hall.
Naturally, not a single hallway or entrance had signs to let inhabitants know where they were or where they were going. The best Sabrina could do for me was to sniff out where she smelled the highest collection of demons. If they were all gathered in that place, we assumed it had to be the dorms. Unfortunately for me, that took us clear across to the other side of the castle, and all the way, I had to run past hooting, leering, howling demons who’d never know just how naked I was, but could see I was naked enough.
“I’ve never been so humiliated in my life,” I cried, skidding to a stop before the entrance to the staircase. Above my head,music pounded, people shouted, and fights broke out. “What is with this place!”
“It’s hell, human,” she hissed. “You better enjoy how horrible and small you feel right now, because it’s about to get a lot worse.”
If there was a retort to that, I didn’t know what it was.
I took the stairs two at a time, clinging to the walls. I was not interested in drawing any more attention to myself than I already had.
I hit the top of the landing and was partially relieved that no one was in the hallway. All the noise was coming from the other side of the doors, but in a few minutes, I’d be on the other side of one of those doors, and with all the shouting, banging, and thudding roaring through the wood... all I could do was hope for a single.
Lifting up my bra, I squinted at the room number etched into the key. “Okay, 201... 201... 201...” I walked the length of the hall, my gaze pinging from door to door. “I’m going to find some bedsheets, then a shower. After I clean up, I’ll start searching for Dora,” I whispered.
I reached the end of the hall and found that it split, leading opposite directions to opposite staircases. “Sabrina, if you can smell demons, then you smell humans?”
“Yes.”
“That’s perfect,” I cried, perking up. “That means all you have to do is—”
“Understand thisss, human,” she sliced off. “You are undertaking an impossible task, and there is nothing I or Lord Lucifer can do to make it less so. The creatures who took her will have taken pains to hide your nestmateandher scent from all who do not know her—which is everyone in this realm. As I said, glamours and cunnings only work on the ignorant, so if you could scent her, you’d find her.
“But you can’t,” she dropped. “Do not expect me to do what you cannot do, human. If you wanted miracles, you should’ve gone up, not down.”
I fell quiet.
We had nothing more to say to each other as I turned left, found myself in the three hundreds, turned back the way I came, and then ascended the right staircase. Room 201 loomed in front of me, beckoning me inside. Carefully, I inserted the key and walked in.
My gasp echoed through the manor.
