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 Tempted Angel
BLACKWOOD UNIVERSITY 1

JEWEL KILLIAN
Copyright © 2024 by Jewel Killian
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a
book review.
Cover: Romancepremades.com
Editor: KKBookpolishing
 Go fuck your demons.
But also…
For the girls who were told their bodies are for their future,
inevitable husbands. You belong to yourself.
AND
If you know the name on my driver’s license, for the love of Lucifer,
put this book down. I’m not kidding. There are so many dicks in this
book, and all for one girl… I’d still like to be able to look at you at
the holidays.
 A note from the author

This book is medium-roast dark. There’s some fucked up shit in here

but I wouldn’t say it’s dark dark. Your mental health matters to me.
Protect it. If you don’t want spoilers, I’d suggest turning the page.
Possible upsetting content: forced public nudity, auctioning/sexual
slavery, kidnapping/isolation, murder, parental abuse, parental
death, SA outside the harem, attempted SA within the harem,
blood/knives, degradation, vomit, violence, gore, religious cult,
religious trauma.
 Contents

Stalk me… I’m into it

Want a free story?

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31

Afterword
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Set in The Same Universe
 Stalk me… I’m into it

Readers Group: Jewel’s Book Coven

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 Chapter One

If an angel loses her Grace, her wings will wither like the
parched lands of Cinder.
- The Book Of Grace Chapter 5 Verse 87

M alachi U mbra , Commander of the Seventh Celestial Host and newly

appointed High Commander of Legions—and my father—with his
piercing violet gaze and broad build, is the greatest archangel in
generations.
Great like the flood.
Great like the depression.
Great like my desire not to be here.
The floor trembles.
The air crackles with energy as blinding, electric blue flames
surge up from the very center of our plane.
An answer to his call.
He isn’t an archangel people argue with.
Today is different.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
For a moment, his thunderous order drowns out the hissing,
sizzling fire leaping toward him. The flames encircle him, casting him
and his war room in icy shades of blue-violet. He draws his wings in
close just as the fires draw closer, bathing his formal robes and white
feathers in flickering light.
The flames lick closer still, teasing at the hem of his robes until
they finally consume him completely.
My father steps forward and the flames settle around his neck,
flowing down his back like a magnificent cloak.
It’s quite an image.
One that he’s cultivated over the centuries he’s held office, now
emboldened by his newly appointed position.
I’ve never seen him without at least a touch of the Flames.
Embers at his fingertips.
Blue smoke winding around his head like a ghostly crown.
A single spark in his gaze.
So there’s never a doubt.
Not a single soul can forget, even for a moment, how powerful
he is.
The only archangel in history to have the Flames of Celestus at
his beck and call.
It’s been ages since he’s called on the plane’s fires in full. That
he’s done so now doesn’t bode well for me.
And as the unnaturally hued firelight flickers over his features,
painting him in unsettling shadow and light, a question tickles my
mind.
What will he choose this time?
Compassion?
Empathy?
Doubtful.
He stares me down, anger crackling like lightning, burning just as
bright as the fires at his back. “You cannot do this, Dove. I simply
won’t allow it.”
There was a time when those words would have been enough.
When even the mere thought of his raised voice would root me in
place.
Would have kept me here.
But not for this.
 “Father, I must. You know it as well as I do.” My voice falters, but
I hold his gaze, craning my neck to do so. Because for as tall as
Malachi is, I am short in equal measure.
One of the many ways I’m a disappointment to him.
The flaming cloak eddies out with his displeasure and bleeds into
a shade of cobalt so dark, the room dims.
Our plane’s fires aren’t for burning. No heat comes from the
billowing pyre at the center of our realm.
“It’s a fine impression of a blueberry, Father. It does wonders for
your crow’s feet. But that doesn’t change my mind,” I say over the
roaring cloak. My voice doesn’t falter this time.
His eyes narrow, darkening. “Careful, daughter.”
“Why? So you can stand there, high and mighty in your austere
and righteous fire and proselytize to me, yet again? Try to convert
me to your anti-Gael doctrine?”
My father sucks in a breath between his teeth and the flames
grow darker, deeper, bordering on an inky indigo.
As long as they don’t go fully black.
“Gael and I are soul-bonded, Father. You know this. Just like you
also know that I must go find him.” Why can’t he understand this?
The lightning in Malachi’s gaze hardens to steel and he slaps me
across the cheek.
The blow lands too quickly for me to block.
Not that I could.
Warm metal on my tongue, a buzzing ring in my ears.
Still, I return my gaze to his face.
Now contorted into a snarl.
“Your place is here, where we—where I—can protect you from
the creatures who only want to use and abuse you. Here, away from
the temptation and savagery of the mortal realm.”
Hosts of angels, of dragons, and minotaur, and giants have all
bowed to my father’s will. All have fallen in line.
And yet I, his only daughter, his defective progeny, defy him.
And the shame of it is, I know he knows all too well the power of
a soul-bond.
 My betrothed, the angel Celestus itself deemed my one true
match, is stuck in that awful mortal realm just like I was.
Why can’t Malachi see that even if it weren’t for the soul-bond,
even if Gael wasn’t my betrothed and our bond didn’t constantly
beckon us to each other, I’d still have to find him?
Gael already did the same for me.
But his disapproval of my soul-bond hurts far less than the pain
of my father’s refusal to believe in me.
“I don’t need protection anymore, Father.” The warble in my
voice belies the conviction hardening deep in my veins.
He scoffs. A brutal noise, as grating to my ears as to my spirit.
The cloak shivers around him, almost vibrating.
Shaking.
With laughter.
I grit my teeth, anger singing through me, a welcome, bolstering
accompaniment to my resolve.
Even the Fires themselves don’t believe in me.
“You certainly do need protection, Dove. If not directly from me,
then from the host at large. You’re in the most dangerous part of
your awakening.”
He pauses, and I already know he’s about to change tactics.
Commanding me didn’t work, so he’ll make an attempt at seeing
the other side of the argument.
He won’t truly empathize.
He won’t put himself in my position.
I’ve seen him do it countless times with countless political
opponents. I believe that skill alone earned him his newest title.
High Commander of Legions. All the hosts now formally recognize
him as their superior.
Because Malachi Umbra is fantastic at looking like he’s considered
every angle, while in truth, he always and only pursues his own
agenda.
He falls into his perfect, dimpled smile. Even his cloak of fire
stops flickering, smoothing to steady indigo flames. “But for
argument’s sake, let’s assume the mortal realm isn’t bursting with
creatures who want nothing more than to siphon every bit of your
potential power for their own selfish needs. Let’s also pretend that
with most of your power still dormant, you aren’t supremely
susceptible to demonic influence.”
He pauses again, giving dramatic weight to his contrivance.
“Dove, you still do not have the skills to survive the mortal
plane.”
My pulse speeds as heat flushes through me.
I don’t act. I say nothing, allowing my fury to lighten the weight
of Malachi’s impending words.
“Not with your—affliction.”
The word makes my chest burn, and I clamp down on my
tongue, biting until it hurts.
All to keep said affliction in check.
“You simply cannot blend in with mortals.”
My father’s brow softens, his shoulders lower, and the cloak
lightens back to bright cobalt. “It’s best to leave the boy there. He’s
made his mess, Dove. Let him languish in it. You must end it now
before the Rites of Consummation. It will ache less, dear daughter.
This I vow.”
Blood fills my mouth as I bite back the words I want to yell at
him. Scream at him. How could he suggest such a cruelty?
But as always, pain only holds the affliction at bay momentarily.
It will always break free.
And this time, I don’t care enough to keep fighting it.
“Just because you’re miserable and alone doesn’t mean I should
be, too. Losing your soul-bond with Mother⁠—”
He smacks the words off my tongue, hitting me so hard a spray
of blood hits the floor with a sickening plop.
Pain radiates through my face, and I stare down at the teardrop-
shaped splatters, gathering my will.
Steeling my spine.
I’ve never defied him.
“Watch your tone, daughter. It’s better not to speak the words of
a story you only know half of. Affliction or not, I won’t have you
sullying your mother’s memory.”
 I take a breath and slowly turn my head to face him once more.
Heat rises in my cheeks, and I lock eyes with him.
And it may have only been the flames—now darkened and
flickering with his wrath—casting shadows on his face, but I swear
his eyes widen as I match the fury of his gaze.
“Speaking about her is hardly sullying. Now, if I were to say
Mother was a fallen whore who jumped on as many cocks as she
could find, that is truly sullying her memory.”
My cheeks grow hotter still, this time with embarrassment.
My father’s flames fan outward, shifting to an even deeper iron
blue, a shade I’ve never seen before now.
I brace for another blow.
But it doesn’t come.
Malachi Umbra knows when it’s the affliction that takes hold of
my tongue.
On the mortal plane, they call it frontal lobe disinhibition.
The inability to keep thoughts from becoming words, no matter
how hurtful.
And another reason Father doesn’t want me going back.
But I divide my life into two parts.
Before Gael and after Gael.
See, he found me on the mortal plane after the accident that left
me unconscious and bleeding in a ditch.
The human nurses said the impact threw me from the car. Right
through the windshield. That is, they said it when I woke up from
my coma several weeks later.
An angel in a coma?
Preposterous, right?
Except, I wasn’t of age. I hadn’t received my Grace yet. And an
angel without her Grace on the mortal plane is just as vulnerable as
a human.
Granted, if I’d died while on the mortal plane, my soul would
come back to Celestus, where I’d be born once more.
But since my injury happened pre-Grace, pre-immortality, and
since I was stuck on that plane for so long, the damage became
permanent.
 Gael didn’t have his Grace either. He couldn’t simply shimmer us
back to Celestus. To our healers.
I think he still feels guilty about that.
When we finally returned, the healers did what they could. They
smoothed the scars and strengthened the muscles that had wasted
away. But they couldn’t fix the damage to my mind.
If I’d gotten back sooner, they might have mended me fully.
I wish they’d never told me.
Never said it loud enough for Gael to overhear.
But as difficult as it is having a brain that refuses to filter thought
from speech, that says the most inappropriate and hurtful things, I
don’t regret the accident.
I can’t.
It’s how Gael found me.
Feeling a soul-bond lock into place is like finally taking a full
breath. It’s like finally seeing the world in color.
It’s discovering a new color.
And my father is determined to strip me of the air, the color.
He lets out a long breath. “All are attracted to the light, Dove.
You know this. Humans will want to be near you and not know why.
Spellcasters will try to steal your light, your power. And Celestus help
us if a demon catches scent of you.”
Don’t say it, Dove. Don’t say it. If there’s ever a time to hold your
tongue, it’s right now.
I use every trick I have. Biting my tongue, clenching my fists
until my nails dig in. I even hold my breath.
Because the demons are exactly where I’m heading.
They know where my soul-betrothed is. And with luck, I’ll
convince them to help me free Gael.
“They’ll make you fall, Dove. Steal every virtue, every purity.
They’ll take your power, unlock what’s dormant, and steal it for
themselves. You know this, daughter! You can’t risk⁠—”
For the first time in my life, I interrupt him.
“I won’t leave Gael behind, Father.”
I stand straighter and stare into his vicious violet gaze, conjuring
the same in mine. “And short of taking my wings, you can’t stop
me.”
 Chapter Two

An angel’s power manifests in three parts: by Birth, by Grace,

and by Rites.
- The Book of Grace Chapter 23 Verse 78

S era surveys my face with the trained eye of an angel who’s spent
more time in the mortal realm than anyone else in Celestus. Her
rainbow gaze locks on mine, full of earnest concern.
“You’re certain? Because before you complete the Rites, you can
still technically renounce the bond.”
The Rites of Consummation. The ceremony where Gael and I
finally come together as two soul-bonded are meant to.
Sharing bodies is the last step, formalizing our bond and
unlocking the rest of our dormant power. After which, no one can
tear us apart.
Not even Father.
That’s not to say Gael and I haven’t been together in other ways.
Every other way. We’re simply saving the real thing for the Rites.
Like every other soul-bonded in Celestus.
“You know I can’t renounce him, Sera.”
“Good. I was only checking.” She steps back, eyeing me with an
uncomfortable amount of scrutiny. “But there’s no way you can pull
that off.” Sera gestures to my face with a grimace. She yanks the
charmed ring off my finger and slides on another in its place. “Here’s
hoping number six does the trick.”
“I can’t possibly look awful in every glamour.”
She shrugs, lavender-blonde hair falling over her shoulder. “It’s
not my fault your features are so typically Celestial. You’ve looked
awful as a ginger, brunette, and dirty blonde so far.”
Part of infiltrating the mortal realm is making sure I’m not
immediately recognized as an angel. Most mortals—even most magic
users—have never seen my kind, but they sure are good at telling
human from not. The slightest variance rattles something in their
primal brain.
I found that out the hard way before my accident, but that was
before I had my Grace. My features weren’t quite so Celestial before
then. Now it’s exponentially more difficult. I might as well shimmer
down in a white robe and a halo because iridescent white hair and
luminous skin is a dead giveaway.
Sera’s been hard at work finding a convincing glamour that
doesn’t make me look ridiculous.
It’s been hours. A labor of love only the closest friend would
abide.
And she is. Sera’s one of the very few who knows how cruel my
father can be to his own progeny.
She’s always been the one to heal the bruises and split lips when
my hands shake too much to do so on my own.
“I still can’t believe you called your mother a fallen whore to his
face.”
Not my finest moment. “I didn’t truly say it.”
“No. You just thought it,” Sera says with a smirk, as if thinking it
is somehow worse than saying it out loud.
My father’s public persona is so cultivated, so impeccably
maintained, no one would believe how often his raised voice leads to
a raised hand. To the rest of Celestus, Malachi Umbra is a ruthless
leader, but a doting father. The hosts eat up the contrived persona.
They’re all too happy to assume I’m the only one who sees his
softer side, but the reality is far more grim.
I’m the closest to his temper.
 The number of times he’s paraded me—smiling and coiffed—to
full host functions where he can publicly praise me as his strong,
determined daughter, all the while squeezing the hidden bruises
under the guise of fatherly affection…
“You know, this would be so much easier if you weren’t going to
the only place where you can’t use your own magic to do this right.
Now let me think.” Sera crosses her bedroom to the dresser and
searches through the pouch of charmed items once again.
Her sleeping quarters—which I always think of as warm and soft
because of the amber-toned light she favors—have always been
close to mine, but not because we’re friends. Sera is my only cousin.
The only angel remaining on her father’s line. So she’s always
understood the unique pressure of being born into a high-profile
family.
And Sera is the closest link I have to my mother.
Our mothers were sisters, pregnant with us at the same time. We
were born just a few moons apart. Audra, Sera’s mother, always said
we were destined to be fast friends.
Even when Aunt Audra left my father’s host for another,
Seraphina stayed here.
With me.
For me.
“Now remember,” she says, locking eyes with me in the mirror as
she dumps the whole pouch of charmed baubles onto the polished
wooden dresser. “Humans don’t speak like us. Don’t fall into that
formal shit you do with your father.”
Malachi has always demanded precise words and clear meaning
when speaking with him. It’s such a habit that sometimes I catch
myself even thinking that way.
“And they don’t speak like all that garbage TV of theirs you still
watch.
“Hey! First of all…”
Sera purses her lips at me.
Yeah, OK. She’s right. My taste in mortal realm entertainment is
questionable.
 But an angel’s got to have her guilty pleasures. And it’s not my
fault I got hooked on it. There wasn’t much else to do in the hospital
besides listen to nurse gossip, endure physical therapy, and watch
trashy TV—a term I learned on said trashy TV.
I was only conscious for a week before Gael got me out, but
that’s all it takes to get hooked on the dopamine of watching horrible
people do horrible things.
I’d paid a tinkerer a ridiculous sum of latinum to smuggle a
device back to Celestus and magic it to receive mortal realm media.
“Fine. What else?”
Sera’s special interest in university was Angel-Human relations.
She’s spent nearly three years at a human college and is the closest
thing I have to a mortal realm expert.
She was incredibly lucky to have the chance.
The only reason my father allowed her on the mortal plane was
she’d already performed her Rites with Thaniel, rendering her light
and magic practically invisible to demons and humans alike.
She can mingle freely with humans without drawing their
attention because as a fully-fledged angel, her magic is naturally
cloaked. It doesn’t draw humans and spellcasters in.
I can’t do that yet.
If only Gael and I had waited.
“Definitely keep a lid on how much you resent being there and
how much you hate their plane.” She puts a comical amount of
emphasis on the idiomatic phrase, likely chosen on purpose as a
test.
But her suggestion—idiom or not—is easier said than done. The
mortal realm forever changed me. It made me deficient in ways that
can never be fixed. Only managed.
I resent that place more than is probably healthy, especially
considering it’s where I found Gael.
Sera lifts an eyebrow at me, a question lurking in the sparkling
rainbow of her gaze.
And since I don’t like the condescension in her silent question, or
her assumption that I can’t parse her inane idiom on my own, I take
a shot at her.
 “All it takes is context, Bullseye,” I say with a smirk.
Sera frowns at the use of her grade-school nickname.
Because while I think she’s lucky to have the most uncommon
combination of both her mother’s and father’s eye color, Sera hates
them.
Aunt Audra’s golden-green and her father’s striking teal somehow
gave Sera rings of blue and green around a deep russet center.
She thinks they look like archery targets.
But I imagine it’s nice not having your murderous father’s angry
violet eyes staring at you in the mirror. Between his eye color and his
dimples, I only see him when I look at myself.
Sera shakes her head, choosing to believe the affliction spoke the
nickname.
I’ll keep her in the dark about that one.
See? Idioms are easy.
“Anyway, humans never say what they mean. Ever. So don’t get
caught up trying to say the right thing all the time.”
I nod again, filing away all her tips in a neat little folder in my
brain, and Sera approaches with another ring.
“And remember to adapt to their terms. They don’t call fast-travel
shimmering. The demons call it blinking and witches say something
else entirely. Oh, and watch your exclamatory phrases. Don’t give
yourself away by calling on the Flames or asking Celestus to help
you.”
“Right. Any suggestions?”
“There’s always oh my gods, hells, infernal. If you wanted
something a little more human, you could go for balls, or any of their
curse words, really. Or you can riff on the seven realms phrasing.
You’ve got options, just don’t say anything Celestial-adjacent.”
“OK. I’ve got it.”
“Good. Now, here’s hoping for a miracle,” she murmurs and jams
the ring on my index finger.
A warm sheet of foreign magic skates down my skin.
At least that’s an improvement. The other charms felt like wet
wool pasted against me.
 “Huh.” Sera steps back, regarding me more intently than before.
“I think we have something here.” She spins around, grabbing
something I don’t see from her dresser. “Close your eyes.”
I oblige her.
“Looks like I was thinking about this all wrong,” she whispers. “I
was trying to find a humanized version of your natural features.”
She rubs something over my eyelids and lips and steps back.
“Look at me.”
I do, and Sera’s mouth drops. “Fuuuck.”
Fuck is the only bit of slang I have trouble with. It can mean
literally everything and sometimes context doesn’t help.
“Fuck good or fuck bad?” I ask.
Sera doesn’t answer. She simply holds up a mirror.
And now my mouth falls open at the painted demon staring back.
“Sera!” I touch the black horns sprouting from the top of my
head and run a hand through my new shiny black hair, before
staring into my own black-rimmed violet eyes and deep dimples.
My skin, my face, remains untouched by magic. Only makeup.
“You’re too Celestial to make human. So I stopped trying,” she
says with a shrug.
“Sera, there’s a difference between infiltrating a demon school
and becoming one myself.”
But as I protest, as my heart thuds with the wrongness of my
new appearance, I can’t take my eyes off the mirror.
“I know, I know. The plan was to make you a witch, but those
human glamours looked like bad Halloween masks.”
I glance back at her. “What’s a Halloween mask?”
Sera doesn’t bother rolling her eyes at me this time. “It’s not
important. The point is, the others wouldn’t convince a blind nun.
This…” She looks me up and down and lets out a slow whistle. “This
is some of my best work, Dove. Feel free to say thank you any time.”
My new face pulls my gaze to the mirror again. “I don’t know,
Sera.”
“Are you crazy? You look fantastic.”
I bite my tongue against the flurry of affliction-born, self-
aggrandizing phrases begging to be set free.
 I do look incredible. Sexy, confident, and dark. I make a
convincing demon. But looking good, looking convincing, that’s not
the problem.
“There’s no way I can pull off being a demon in a university full
of them. They’ll know I’m an outsider with the first social misstep.”
Sera smiles, a knowing glint in her gaze. “Yeah, and you’ve got a
built-in excuse. That’s why you won’t try to convince anyone of
anything. Now, let’s figure out what a hot demon chick wears.”
 Chapter Three

Never look at a demon, for it will always be your ruin.

- The Book Of Grace Chapter 1 Verse 1 Line 1

S era and I did our best with the clothes. Jeans and boots and a
leather jacket seemed innocuous but on-brand enough, so that’s
what we settled on despite her insistence that I could pull off leather
pants and a halter.
Both options are a far cry from linen tunics and formal robes.
As I land in the center of Blackwood Park, her parting words ring
in my head.
You’ve got a built-in excuse.
Sera’s shimmers are still rough. The last remaining side-effect
from the Rites she hasn’t worked out yet.
She’s still working on controlling the vast amount of magic she
now has access to.
I knew the ride would be bumpy, and I would have shimmered
myself, but I locked my power down behind the biggest ward of
angel script Sera and I could manage.
If I can’t get to it, the demons shouldn’t be able to either.
They’ll look at me and only see a demon.
A short one, but a demon all the same.
 My stomach roils as the hazy horizon wiggles in the distance. The
sun is low in the sky, and when the shimmer-vertigo subsides, I get
myself ready.
I didn’t say goodbye to anyone in Celestus. I didn’t even stop to
take in my realm’s beauty before coming here.
If humans only knew how trees are meant to look. How the air is
supposed to smell.
How each leaf, each blade of grass and petal, sings to the wind
and beckons the light with sweet melodies.
If only they knew how many more colors there are.
I honestly can’t understand why Gael spends so much time here.
I had more than enough of this realm after my first visit.
Accident and brain damage aside, once the novelty of being in a
forbidden realm wears off, the mortal realm is…
Woefully depressing.
But Gael always said to go to Blackwood if he ever got into
trouble. So, here I am.
Though I could truly murder him for failing to mention the most
crucial part. Not only is Blackwood entirely demon run, but he didn’t
simply mean to go to the cloaked city of cast-out magic users.
No.
He meant to go to the blackened, writhing center.
The pit of evil itself.
The place where they train the worst of the worst magic users so
they can be even…
Worse.
Blackwood University.
When Gael went missing almost two weeks ago, it took Sera and
me days to figure out how to find the demons with information.
Walking into a den of liars and thieves who want nothing more
than to corrupt and strip my magic by any means necessary isn’t
something I’m doing lightly. Sera and I researched day and night for
an alternative—some other way of getting the information I need
about Gael. From inter-planar tracking spells, to tapping Sera’s old
school contacts, to even—and I’m not proud of this—filing a formal
missing person report with the local police.
 If Malachi ever discovers I entangled myself in the mortal realm
law enforcement…
When all that failed, and we accepted that Blackwood University
was the only answer, we spent several more hours searching for a
covert way into Blackwood University.
But the school has no weaknesses.
No way to infiltrate without being seen.
There’s only one way into Blackwood U—as a student. And you
can’t get into the most illustrious magical college in the realm—
according to them—with transcripts and letters of recommendation.
The evening birdsong draws my gaze to the trees. Autumn has
changed the leaves to shades of brown and red and yellow, and
while it’s nothing compared to the blood-drenched reds and
aubergine of Celestus’s autumn, it has its charm.
By my calculations, the school year started at least a month ago.
Entering mid-term isn’t ideal for keeping a low profile, but there isn’t
another option.
I look down at my rings. Three in total. One charmed with my
demon glamour, one with a tracking spell, and the other…
As I twist the second ring around my knuckle, it glows dull and
red under my touch. My pulse races, and I speak the infernal phrase
that unlocks the demon magic held in abeyance within the metal.
It’s a last-ditch effort.
If I can find Gael with a tracking spell, I can avoid Blackwood U
entirely. It won’t take nearly as long as getting into the school,
finding the right demons, and making them trust me enough to give
me the information.
And when Malachi discovers I found Gael with minimal demonic
contact—and he definitely will—he might not exile me.
I twist the other rings around my fingers as the inelegant spell
drifts into the æther, jagged and foreign. It spreads thin, the sheet
of blunt magic expanding outward and outward.
I hold my breath, but my chest is light. Lighter than it’s been in
weeks.
I can hardly keep myself from bouncing on my toes.
This might work. I might be with my soul-bonded in moments.
 But like all who tried before me, the spell disintegrates moments
after being cast.
Dull red sparks sink all around me, scattering in the dying grass.
I grip the tree next to me, brittle bark flaking off in my hands as
the ground drops from under me.
I was counting on this more than I realized, assuming no one
before had cared enough or wanted it badly enough.
It’s easy to think will alone is all the muscle a spell needs.
Easier still to unknowingly rest all your hopes on the premise.
I really have to do this…
Go to that school. Fraternize with demons.
Put my Grace and yet unrealized power at risk.
I will do everything necessary to get my betrothed. But it doesn’t
lessen the icy tendrils of dread spiderwebbing through my insides.
It doesn’t lessen the gravity of what I’m about to do.
I’ve got just one shot at this, so I brush the bark off my palm,
smooth my hair in place, and get to work.
The only way to get into Blackwood is as a student, and the only
way to do that is to have—as Sera would say—a fuck-ton of magic.
And I do. Even now, before completing the Rites and gaining the
full mantle of power, I have more than any other Graced angel.
Like his eyes and dimples, my father bestowed his endless pit of
power to his only child.
Not that he knows. And not that it matters. Not on Celestus and
especially not here. I can’t use my native power. Any hint of angel
magic in the æther and I’ll have every hell hound, succubus, and
demon spawn on my trail for a hundred miles.
Father is right about that, at least.
Everyone is drawn to the light.
It’s a strange sort of balance.
I glance at my hands again, to the last ring.
Since using my own magic will blow my cover, we charmed a ring
to explode with a veritable bomb of demon magic. Plus a few others
stowed in my bag for miscellaneous needs.
The demon magic bomb should be enough to get Blackwood U’s
attention.
 At least I hope it will be.
If it isn’t…
Well, I’ll get myself in that school one way or another.
I don’t second guess myself or waste time wondering if I’m doing
the right thing.
I am.
This is how I’ll find my soul-bonded. My betrothed.
And the second I do, we’re getting the hell off this rock.
The ring slides off my finger, and I throw it on the ground. It
explodes the moment it touches the grass, a blinding flash of color
and sound in a brilliant show of demonic power.
The force knocks me back, but I stay on my feet and even hang
on to my bag. I check my right hand, making sure the blast didn’t
damage the glamour ring before double checking my left hand, and
the invisible Celestus seal tattooed on my palm.
The angel script that only other Celestials can see.
The seal that binds my power on this plane. Three lines of
vertical script glow bright blue under my scrutiny. The same shade of
blue as the Flames themselves.
Before the glow fades, a fat orange feline appears in the corner
of my vision.
“Did you do that?” it asks aloud with an eerie other-planar voice.
I stare at the rotund creature, and he stares right back.
Gael said nothing about demon cats on this plane.
His tail swishes back and forth as if the creature is annoyed.
“Well? I haven’t got all day.”
I nod, but instead of answering the straightforward query, I insult
him. “Ah. I see. Important cat shit to do?”
I never know when my tongue will run amok. There’s no
consistent circumstance that brings it forth. Just an occasional,
nagging itch in my brain. If I’m lucky, I can catch it in time.
Otherwise, it just…
Happens.
The cat eyes me, something new rising in his gaze.
I’m not well-versed in reading demon cat facial expressions, but I
think he’s amused.
 Or as amused as a cat can be, I suppose.
“No point in lying. I can smell the magic on you. Come on. It’s off
to the school for you.”
The cat doesn’t give me the chance to argue before it sprouts
several writhing tentacles, lashes them around my middle and limbs,
and pulls me toward it.
Before I can scream, it’s over.
It’s bright. Too bright. I’m squinting when four large shadows
step in front of me
“Who the hell are you? And how the fuck did you get here?” a
deep masculine voice belonging to one of the shadows yells. Even in
the thinner air of this realm, his voice still holds all the depth and
resonance of his kind.
A demon.
I squeeze my left hand. This is it. The real test.
Either the angel script ward worked…
Or I’m moments away from falling. From losing my Grace.
The shadow takes a single step forward. “I asked you a
question.”
It’s a command for compliance. Obedience. And it pulls at me like
the moon does the tides.
I step away from it. From him.
My whole life, my father warned me about this. About demons
getting too close.
But that damned demon cat shimmered me right in front of four
of them.
I’d intended to ease into this slowly and give myself time to
adjust to the demonic allure. But it seems the cat had other ideas.
I block the light from my eyes with a hand and fire right back at
the demon. “I’m Dove, the cat brought me, and are you this nice to
every new student, or am I just special?”
The shadows behind him snicker, and as my eyes adjust, the
shadow that spoke comes into view.
My mouth goes dry, hand falling limp at my side.
Before me stands the perfect specimen of a male demon. His
dark simmering fury equal to his breathtaking beauty. With a flick of
his black eyes, he assesses me from head to toe.
Sizing me up?
Or enjoying the view?
I return the favor, taking in his carved cheekbones, sharp enough
to cut glass. The full bottom lip and the tongue that darts out to wet
it. His muscular build, on display in a tight t-shirt.
But I’m most struck by his eyes.
They’re not flat and soulless like I always thought the demonic
gaze would be.
No.
They sparkle like black diamonds, or the midnight sky flecked
with stars. The moment our glances meet, I’m locked in place,
snared in his gaze and unable—or, even more upsetting—unwilling to
move.
He approaches, an arrogant smile lifting his lips, and I’m hit with
his demonic scent. But there’s something else, something different
mingling with the freshly-lit-match burn.
He comes closer, each step ticking my heart up.
And I can’t seem to move.
“New student, huh?” He’s so close, the heat of his body
envelopes me as he backs me into a rough, curved wall. I bite my
cheek to keep my mouth in check.
He takes my chin in his hand, tipping my head up and to each
side as if examining me.
And the moment his skin touches mine, the universe ceases to
exist. There is only this demon’s warm hand on my face.
A shiver shudders through me, shaking my shoulders, skating
down my spine like a slithering snake.
Celestus help me, I’m not even supposed to look at demons, but
here I am, in the school for less than five minutes, and I’m letting
one touch me.
And worse…
I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
 Chapter Four

To bask in the warmth of an angel’s love is rhapsodic. And

equally, so too her spurn will flay the mind
- Collected Works of Celestus’s Foremost Poets: Seventh
Edition

P laying along , I lower my lashes and, against my better judgment,

rest my hands gently on his chest. The moment I do, my heart
quickens, tripping over its beat until I’m certain it will flutter out of
my chest entirely.
A low, rumbling groan of approval snakes out of the demon’s
throat. His grip on my chin softens, and he runs his thumb gently
over my lips. “You know, female demons are a hot commodity
around here.”
His touch sends electric tingles through me, and things low in my
body pay attention.
OK, playtime is over. Time to put this demon in his place.
I’m here for Gael, not to succumb to demonic temptation. No
matter how tempting it might be, I’m no tempted angel.
I fake a smile, take a breath, and drag my nails down his shirt.
The demon’s scent deepens, swirling in my nose as he flashes a
salacious smile.
 “Yes, I had heard that.” I hadn’t. “But have you considered that
you’d have more luck with the ladies if you didn’t invade their
personal space,” I croon before shoving him away with the hands I’d
just used to make him purr.
He staggers backward and would have fallen if his friends hadn’t
caught his arms.
“Oh! Oh, my! I’m terribly sorry,” the demon cat, silent to this
point, quips. “I seem to have brought you to the wrong room.” His
tentacles grab me once more, and he shimmers me out before I get
to enjoy the look on that presumptuous demon’s face.
Shame, really.
Now I’m in a dark office. Dead wood on every surface, painted
black.
Low light.
More demonic scents.
The cat stands on the desk in front of me, behind which is a
seated demon, his face entirely obscured by a newspaper.
“Welcome to Blackwood University, Ms. Collins,” the demon says
from behind the paper. His voice is deep and resonant, just like the
first demon, but it isn’t as rich. It doesn’t grab me like the other’s
did.
“How do you know who I am?” I ask.
I don’t have to pretend to be shocked. Collins is the pseudonym
Gael gave the hospital after the accident. I glance at the name
plaque on his desk.
It only has his title.
Headmaster.
The demon lowers the local newspaper.
He’s exceptionally attractive. Black horns and midnight blue skin
with strong, angled facial bones. He’d even make a lovely angel if it
weren’t for the darkness in his gaze.
My mouth starts moving without my permission. “Is blue your
favorite color, or are you just happy to see me?”
Oh, for the Flames sake!
Well, I’ve said it. Better own it, I suppose. I stare down at him,
unblinking, daring him to say something more.
 The deep-blue demon smiles with one side of his mouth. “A
sense of humor. That will come in handy here.” He stands, striding to
my side of the desk until we’re far too close.
This again.
But it’s different. His action isn’t charged with lust and wanting.
It’s an intimidation tactic. Likely useful in determining who has the
temperament to succeed in Blackwood U.
He steps even closer until his shoes touch mine, daring me to
balk.
I don’t. I’ve stared into much crueler eyes.
There’s very little this demon headmaster could do to me that
Malachi hasn’t already done.
“Answer truthfully,” he asks, cold eyes peering so deep I’m
certain he can see the angel beneath the glamour. “Did you
intentionally use a ridiculous amount of magic to get our attention?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Another half-smile as his pupils dilate. “And did you do that for
the sole purpose of gaining entry into Blackwood University?”
I don’t even try to hold this one back. “Do you always look at
new students like you’re going to eat them?”
Another chuff of laughter, but he retreats, sitting behind his desk
and snapping his newspaper out.
Does that mean I passed his little test?
“This isn’t a mundane university, Ms. Collins. There are no rules
against student-faculty relations. So I’d watch those double
entendres if I were you. Now, enough evading. Were you trying to
get my attention?”
I stare at the newspaper, estimating where those cold demon
eyes might be on the other side. “I was.”
He stays silent, slowly lowering the paper.
The cat, now absent of tentacles and bored with this, loudly
grooms his paw.
The weight of the demon’s scrutiny draws my eyes back to his.
His gaze stays on me, far longer than is socially acceptable in this
realm or any other I’m aware of. His attention has weight, has a
physicality I’m not overly fond of.
 It makes me itch.
Makes me want to simultaneously rip my skin off and pull his
eyes out just to be rid of the sensation.
Can he see?
Does he know what’s hiding under all these carefully crafted
contrivances?
I bite my cheek to keep my mouth from saying it.
You just brought an angel into your demon school, dummy.
I knew going in that my brain would never let me keep a secret
this big for long.
But I didn’t think I’d need to draw blood twice only minutes in.
The pain and warm metal as a distraction is the best I can do.
The cat stops licking its toes and stares directly into my soul.
Does he know?
Am I about to get caught by a godsdamned orange cat?
The headmaster nods. “Good. We have enough floundering new
blood roaming the halls. It’s time we had some self-starters.”
He turns in his seat, grabs a tablet from a drawer, and thrusts it
toward me. “Your password is your birthday. Change it. You’ll find
everything you need there, including your room assignment and
class schedule.”
I take the tablet and clutch it against me, too stunned to move.
Is that it?
Am I in?
“You’ve been placed with the second-year students. Don’t make
me regret advancing you.”
Second year. Guess the demon magic bomb Sera and I made was
so powerful I get to skip a grade.
“Go on, Ms. Collins. I have other matters to attend to.”
With a wave of his hand, the demon who hadn’t introduced
himself waves his hand and shimmers me out of his office to the
middle of a crowded hall.
Bright sunshine and white walls. The quiet, almost intimate office
turns into the din of excited students getting out of class. There are
so many people.
Too many.
 I’m jostled between bodies.
It’s too much.
My brain itches to scream. It desperately wants to tell everyone
to back off, that I’m an angel, and that they’re all stupid for not
seeing it.
Pain isn’t working at the moment. My mouth is already full of
blood.
We planned for this. Sera and I knew this might happen.
So, before I shout all my secrets to the entire student body, I
shift my focus to what’s around me. The people, the sights, the
smells.
Focusing on the people makes me angry. Makes my tongue feel
even looser.
The sights aren’t much better. Not as angry, but not calming,
either.
Smells. That’s what does it. Trips up my brain long enough I can
distract it.
I sink into them, putting every bit of my awareness into the
barest molecule of aroma.
There are so many, mingling, combining, and it dawns on me…
There aren’t just demons in this school.
Sure, smoke and brimstone linger in the air, but also the spicy
bite common to witches, and the feral earthy scent of shifters.
There’s something else.
Something I’ve never scented before.
Like death itself.
“Why, hello there. And what is your name, lovely?” With every
syllable, a student with pale skin and pointed teeth slinks closer and
closer to me.
“Back off, Vlad. I’ve got important cat shit to do.”
Fuck, brain. Really? That’s what you hand me right now?
His eyes widen, and the tops of his ears turn pink. I turn my back
to him and start pushing my way through the people in the other
direction.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t turn your back on me, bitch!”
 “Ew. Don’t speak to your betters like that, Count Dracula. You’ll
likely have more luck with the human locals, though.” I don’t break
my stride or even turn around to say it.
Do I know where I’m going?
No.
But do I want to be a meal for the first vampire I’ve ever met?
Bigger no.
As I depart, hearty laughter rises over the other sounds. “Did
that demon chick just call you Count Dracula?”
I can’t tell if they’re laughing at me or at my new pal, the Count,
but it doesn’t matter.
I don’t give a single iota what any of these people think of me.
I’m here to get my soul-bonded and get out.
 Chapter Five

The she-devil, while rare in most devil realms, is a force unto

herself. Stronger than their male counterparts, if provoked,
they will defend what's theirs with tooth and claw.
- From Realm to Realm: The Creature Encyclopedia

I t took an hour wandering the campus to find my dorm building.

The headmaster assigned no one to show me around, and since I
missed orientation day, he left me to figure it out myself.
Along the way, I find the infirmary, gymnasium, library, and the
other dorms all before finding mine.
The only reason I know it’s my dorm is because my schedule
says I’m in room number 719 and this is the only building on the
whole campus tall enough to have a seventh floor.
I gawk up at the ridiculous mirrored glass building. All seven
stories gleam in the sunlight, blinding anyone who walks along the
path of the reflected sun.
How is this a dormitory?
I’ve seen plenty of dorms depicted on TV, and while—contrary to
what Sera thinks—I understand TV rarely represents reality, this is
way off.
This can’t be right.
 The polished glass reflects the entire horizon, sky, clouds, and I
can even see the Blackwood skyline in the distance. It’s so out of
place.
But I suppose it’s not any more out of place than the literal castle
I found on the grounds.
I can’t even imagine what that building is for.
According to my class schedule, for the next semester, I’ll be
living on the top floor of this monstrosity.
As I resign myself to my fate, the sound of hundreds of pounding
feet, like the hooves of a herd of minotaur, stampede closer and
closer.
I twist the ring around on my finger and turn slowly only to find
it’s not minotaur barreling toward me.
It’s a glut of students, coming from all directions, talking and
laughing.
They seem not to notice me as they file into the building.
Fine by me.
Preferred, actually.
But it also seems like far too many students. Looks more like the
entire student population just crammed themselves into the building.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the building is bigger on the inside?
I hang back so I’m not bounced between bodies again.
It doesn’t take very long, a few minutes maybe. But as I enter
the shining building, the bright open area of the first floor—likely the
common shared space, judging by the ludicrous number and
configurations of seating arrangements—is entirely empty.
Not a single student is on that floor or the seven flights of stairs I
trek up.
I reach my floor, packed with what must be every student from
every floor.
Wall-to-wall faces and scents.
How they got here without using the stairs…
I push through the crowd, happily chatting away to each other
and seemingly oblivious to me.
Good. Just the way I like it.
 As I reach my door, I notice a black rectangle over the knob. It
has no buttons. No keyhole.
Great. Now I get to fumble with an e-lock in front of the entire
dorm.
My hands shake as I swipe through the apps on my tablet. I’m
certain I saw one with a lock and key icon. But try as I may, I can’t
find it or any other app that might open the lock.
And the students that were previously talking about classes or
plans or cheating partners, have now noticed me and are doing a
shit job of disguising the whispered insults and speculation about
me.
I hear every word.
“Is that the new demon girl everyone’s been talking about?” a
feminine voice directly behind me whispers.
A lighter, floaty voice answers. “Yeah. She doesn’t look so
powerful to me. And she’s really short for a demon.”
OK, that’s fair. Should I mention I’m short for an angel, too?
No, Dove. Keep that mouth buttoned up.
Sera and I talked about making me taller, but ultimately decided
less was more with my glamour, so here I am, in all my five-foot
glory.
The third, a throaty sound with the authority that comes with
high status, doesn’t even bother to keep her voice low. “Wow, is that
what all the fuss is about? Really?”
Each comment dings against my nerves until I can’t take it
anymore. I spin on my heel and stare daggers at the three demon
women across the hall from me.
Each one is more beautiful than the next. A redhead, a platinum
blonde, and a brunette with coily spirals that almost brush her
shoulders, all radiating dark power and each one wearing what I can
only assume is the latest fashion of the realm.
“Something to say?” The redhead lifts a brow at me. A challenge.
I immediately recognize her as the ringleader.
All the background whispers stop.
The hall goes silent.
 I stare at each one in turn—memorizing their faces and the
cinched silhouette of their tailored, expensive clothes—waiting for
my brain to make my mouth take care of this for me.
So, imagine my surprise when I don’t have to.
“Alright, alright. Stop ogling the new girl, ya bunch of savages.” A
student with hazel eyes and hair almost the same color, wearing a T-
shirt proclaiming her allegiance to something called BC Lions, strides
up to me.
She rolls her eyes and jerks her head toward the three demons.
Agreed.
“Olivia, why don’t you find the heirs you’re always draping
yourselves over, huh?”
I tense at the word. Heirs.
That’s who I’m supposed to find.
Olivia scoffs. “Whatever.” She turns around and tells the other
two to do the same, as if it was her idea all along.
The student, who’s eye level with me, magicks open my door and
pulls me inside.
“Don’t pay them any mind.” She closes the door with her foot
and takes the tablet from me, tapping furiously before handing it
back.
I don’t know what to make of this woman. She smells both spicy,
like a witch, and feral, like a shifter, and somehow put three
powerful demons in their place with a sentence despite looking soft
and feminine. A round face and rounder hips, like the stars made her
for the male gaze.
She reminds me of the Omegas in the wolf packs we have on
Celestus. The nurturers and softest members of the pack who need
the protection of the Alphas.
But she ordered those three demons around like an Alpha.
Who is this girl?
“Huh, we’re both second-years.” She shoves the tablet against
my chest. “There. I added myself to your contacts. Message me if
those three get on you again.” Before she’s finished the sentence,
she falls backward onto my bed. “So, what’s your story?”
“I’m sorry. Who are you? And why are your shoes on my bed?”
 “Ooops. Sorry about that,” she says, hopping up and extending
her hand. “I’m Stevie Corvus-Stocklin. Well, it’s Stephanie, but do I
look like a Stephanie to you?”
I have no idea what to say to that.
Unfortunately, I don’t get the final say on that. It’s coming out
before I can bite my cheek. “I wouldn’t know. I think you look more
like a crow and smell like a dog, but maybe that’s just a Stephanie
thing.”
Excellent start, brain. Fantastic, even.
I tense, anticipating the worst.
Even when people know I don’t mean it, I never get used to the
flash of shock on their faces.
I’m about to explain and apologize when the strange woman
bursts into a contagious belly laugh.
She clutches her sides, bending over, and I’m about to laugh with
her.
What’s worse is she doesn’t look like a crow. And she doesn’t
smell like a dog. I have no idea why my damaged brain said that.
“Well...” she fans herself, regaining composure. “You’re not
wrong. My mom and all but one of my dads are wolf shifters. The
one dad who isn’t is a mage with a crow form.”
“I’m sorry. That came out a lot harsher than I meant it.”
Stevie shrugs and takes my bag off my shoulder. It jerks to the
ground with a loud thud, yanking her arm with it.
“Jeez, what do you have in here, lead?” She rubs at her shoulder.
“I keep forgetting how strong demons are. Anyway, why don’t you
get settled in and I’ll be back in say, an hour? I’ll show you around
and we can grab dinner in the dining hall.”
She exits without waiting for an answer, leaving me staring at a
closed door.
“Guess I’ll see you later,” I murmur.
I shake off the strange witchy wolf shifter who seemingly just
befriended me and focus on the room.
My home for as long as it takes to get Gael.
It’s small. The walls, ceiling, and doors are all painted matte
black. The bedding is dark, the curtains are too, and even the
furniture has a dark stain.
It’s not something I would ever see on Celestus where most
favor light rooms with billowing, dreamy fabrics, or pay homage to
the Flames with shades of cool blue.
But I kind of like it.
It’s cozy. Relaxing. The dark walls aren’t simply flat and dark.
They have depth—they’re almost velvety—and act as a sensory
reset. And the color doesn’t make the room seem smaller. It
continues the line of sight upward, tricking the eye. The windows
are large and let in plenty of natural light and there’s just enough
room for the bed, desk, and dresser, which means I don’t have to
share.
That’s what Sera and I were most concerned about. Keeping up
the demon ruse for classes was one thing, but doing it all day, every
day, in front of a stranger?
Sera almost talked me out of this on that fact alone.
But Gael didn’t leave me when I was stuck here. I’m sure as hell
not leaving him.
Gods, I miss him. His smile, his scent. The way he’d pull me into
him and wrap me in his arms. No one has ever felt more like home
than my betrothed.
I unpack. It’s not much. A few changes of clothes, the makeup
Sera painted me with, and a scrying mirror. Plus enough rings
charmed with demon magic to convince everyone I am what I’m
pretending to be. They’re likely what Stevie thought was so heavy.
Magical items tend to weigh an amount equal to the magic stored
within them.
After I find places for everything, I discover five uniforms
hanging in the closet. Black pleated skirts with gray pinstripes and
black button downs. Plus black socks in the drawer and a pair of
black boots tucked in the back of the closet.
I suppose an all-black uniform shouldn’t be all that surprising,
but I saw quite a few students today and not a single one of them
wore a uniform.
I’ll need to ask Stevie about that.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
ecstatic elasticity to that sustained tone, which was soft, yet strong,
and as sweet as summer.
As his voice thus rang out into the silence with all its pathos and its
passion, he turned his eyes on the eyes he had so learned to love,
and met those orbs, full of delight and of surprise and a patent
admiration, fixed upon his face. The rest of the song he sang straight
at Gertrude Fordyce, and she looked at the singer, her gaze never
swerving. For once his plunging heart in triumph felt he had caught
and held her attention; for once, he said to himself, she did not look
at him as impersonally as if he were the side of the wall.
It was over at last, and he was bowing his acknowledgments to the
wildly applauding audience. The jugglery was at a discount. He had
drawn off the white cloth from the flower-pot, where a strongly rooted
young oak shoot two feet high appeared to have grown while he
sang. But the walls of the room resounded with the turbulent clamors
of an insistent encore. Only the eyes of the rustic-looking stranger
were starting out of his head as he gazed at the oak shoot, and there
came floating softly through his lips the involuntary comment, “By
gum!”
It was necessary in common courtesy to sing at least the last stanza
again, and as the juggler did so he was almost happy in singing it
anew to her starry eyes, and noting the flush on her cheeks, and the
surprise and pleasure in her beautiful face. The miracle of the oak
shoot went unexplained, for all New Helvetia was still clapping a
recall when the juggler, bowing and bowing, with the guitar in his
hand, and ever retreating as he bowed, stepped off at one of the
wings for instructions, and was met there by renewed acclamations
from his fellow entertainers.
“You’d better bring on the play if you don’t want to hold forth here till
the small hours,” he said, flushed, and panting, and joyous once
more.
But the author-manager was of a different mind. The child of his
fancy was dear to him, although it was a very grotesque infant, as
indeed it was necessary that it should be. He deprecated submitting
it to the criticism of an unwilling audience, still clamoring for the
reappearance of another attraction. However, there would not be
time enough to respond to this encore, and yet bring the farce on
with the deliberation essential to its success, and the effect of all its
little points.
“You seem to be the star of the evening,” he said graciously. “And I
should like to hear you sing again myself. But we really haven’t time.
As they are so delighted with you, suppose, by way of letting them
down gently, we give them another sight of you by moving up the
basket trick on the programme, instead of letting it come between
the second and third acts of the play,—we have had to advance the
feat that was to have come between the first and second acts,
anyhow,—and have no jugglery between the acts.”
Royce readily agreed, but the manager still hesitated while the
house thumped and clapped its recall in great impatience, and a
young hobbledehoy slipped slyly upon the stage and facetiously
bowed his acknowledgments, with his hand upon his heart, causing
spasms of delight among the juvenile contingent and some laughter
from the elders.
Said the hesitating manager, unconscious of this interlude, “I don’t
half like that basket trick.”
“Why?” demanded the juggler, surprised. “It’s the best thing I can do.
And when we rehearsed it, I thought we had it down to a fine point.”
“Yes,” still hesitating, “but I’m afraid it’s dangerous.”
The juggler burst into laughter. “It’s as dangerous as a pistol loaded
with blank cartridges! See here,” he cried joyously, turning with
outspread arms to the group of youths fantastic in their stage
toggery, “I call you all to witness—if ever Millden Seymour hurts me,
I intended to let him do it. Come on!” he exclaimed in a different
tone. “I’m obliged to have a confederate in this, and we have
rehearsed it without a break time and again.”
In a moment more they were on the stage, side by side, and the
audience, seeing that no more minstrelsy was in order, became
reconciled to the display of magic. A certain new element of interest
was infused into the proceedings by the fact that another person was
introduced, and that it was Seymour who made all the preparations,
interspersing them with jocular remarks to the audience, while the
juggler stood by, silent and acquiescent. He seemed to be the victim
of the manager, in some sort, and the juvenile spectators, with
beating hearts and open mouths and serious eyes, watched the
proceedings taken against him as his arms were bound with a rope
and then a bag of rough netting was slipped over him and sewed up.
“I have him fast and safe now,” the manager declared. “He cannot
delude us with any more of his deceits, I am sure.”
The juggler was placed at full length on the floor and a white cloth
was thrown over him. The manager then exhibited a large basket
with a top to it, which he also thrust under the cloth. Taking
advantage of the evident partisanship of the children for their
entertainer, he spoke for a few minutes in serious and disapproving
terms of the deceits of the eye, and made a very pretty moral
arraignment of these dubious methods of taking pleasure, which was
obviously received in high dudgeon. He then turned about to lead his
captive, hobbled and bound, off the stage. Lifting the cloth he found
no trace of the juggler; the basket with the top beside it was
revealed, and on the floor was the netting,—a complete case with
not a mesh awry through which he could have escaped. The
manager stamped about in the empty basket and finally emerged
putting on the top and cording it up. Whereupon one antagonistic
youth in the audience opined that the juggler was in the basket.
“He is, is he?” said the manager, looking up sharply at the bullet-
headed row. “Then what do you think of this, and this, and this?”
He had drawn the sharp bowie-knife with which Royce had furnished
him, and was thrusting it up to the hilt here, there, everywhere
through the interstices of the wickerwork. This convinced the
audience that in some inscrutable manner the juggler had been
spirited away, impossible though it might seem. The stage, in the full
glare of all the lamps at New Helvetia Springs, was in view from
every part of the house, and it was evident that the management of
the Unrivaled Attraction was incapable of stage machinery, trap-
doors, or any similar appliance. In the midst of the discussion, very
general over the house, the basket began to roll about. The manager
viewed it with the affectation of starting eyes and agitated terror for a
moment. Then, pouncing upon it in wrath, he loosened the cords,
took off the top, and pulled out the juggler, who was received with
acclamations, and who retired, bowing and smiling And backing off
the stage, the hero of the occasion.
Seymour behind the scenes was giving orders to ring down the
curtain to prepare the stage for “The New Woman.”
“Don’t do it unless you mean it for keeps, Mill,” remonstrated the
property-man. “The devil’s in the old rag, I believe. It might not go up
again easily, and I’m sure, from the racket out there, they are going
to have the basket trick over again.”
For the front row of bullet-heads was conducting itself like a row of
gallery gods, and effervescing with whistlings and shrill cries. The
applause was general and tumultuous, growing louder when the
over-cautious father called out “No pistols and no knives!”
“Oh, they can take care of themselves,” said a former adherent of his
proposition, for the feat was really very clever, and very cleverly
exploited, and he was ready to accredit a considerable amount of
sagacity to youths who could get up so amusing an entertainment.
No one was alert to notice—save his mere presence as some
messenger or purveyor of properties—a dazed-looking young
mountaineer, dripping with the rain, who walked down the main aisle
and stepped awkwardly over the footlights, upon the stage. He
paused bewildered at the wings, and Lucien Royce behind the
scenes, turning, found himself face to face with Owen Haines. The
sight of the wan, ethereal countenance brought back like some
unhallowed spell the real life he had lived of late into the vanishing
dream-life he was living now. But the actualities are constraining.
“You want me?” he said, with a sudden premonition of trouble.
“I hev s’arched fur you-uns fur days,” Haines replied, a strange
compassion in his eyes, contemplating which Lucien Royce felt his
blood go cold. “But the Simses deceived me ez ter whar ye be; they
never told me till ter-night, an’ then I hed ter tell ’em why I wanted
you-uns.”
“Why?” demanded Royce, spellbound by the look in the man’s eyes,
and almost overmastered by the revulsion of feeling in the last
moment, the quaking of an unnamed terror at his heart.
Nevertheless, with his acute and versatile faculties he heard the
clamors of the recall still thundering in the auditorium, he noted the
passing of the facetiously bedight figures for the farce. He was even
aware of glances of curiosity from one or two of the scene-shifters,
and had the prudence to draw Haines, who heard naught and saw
only the face before him, into a corner.
“Why?” reiterated Royce. “Why do you want me?”
“Bekase,” said Haines, “Peter Knowles seen ye fling them queer
shoes an’ belt an’ clothes inter the quicklime, an’ drawed the idee ez
ye hed slaughtered somebody bodaciously, an’ kivered ’em thar too.”
The juggler reddened slightly at the mention of the jaunty attire and
the thought of its sacrifice, but he was out of countenance before the
sentence was concluded, and gravely dismayed.
“Oh, pshaw!” he exclaimed, seeking to reassure himself. “They
would have to prove that somebody is dead to make that charge
stick.”
Then he realized the seriousness of such an accusation, the
necessity of accounting for himself before a legal investigation, and
this, to escape one false criminal charge, must needs lead to a
prosecution for another equally false. The alternative of flight
presented itself instantly. “I can explain later, if necessary, as well as
now,” he thought. “I’m a thousand times obliged to you for telling
me,” he added aloud, but to his amazement and terror the man was
wringing his hands convulsively and his face was contorted with the
agony of a terrible expectation.
“Don’t thank me,” he said huskily. Then, with a sudden hope, “Is thar
enny way out’n this place ’ceptin’ yon?” he nodded his head toward
the ballroom on the other side of the partition.
“No, none,” gasped Royce, his nerves beginning to comprehend the
situation, while it still baffled his brain.
“I’m too late, I’m too late!” exclaimed Haines in a tense, suppressed
voice. “The sher’ff’s thar, ’mongst the others, in that room. I viewed
him thar a minit ago.”
Assuming that he knew the worst, Royce’s courage came back. With
some wild idea of devising a scheme to meet the emergency, he
sprang upon the vacant stage, on which the curtain had been rung
down despite the applause, still resolutely demanding a repetition of
the feat, and through the rent in the trembling fabric swiftly surveyed
the house with a new and, alas, how different a motive! His eyes
instantly fixed upon the rustic face, the hair parted far to the side, as
the sheriff vigorously stamped his feet and clapped his hands in
approbation. That oasis of refined, ideal light where Miss Fordyce sat
did not escape Royce’s attention even at this crisis. Had he indeed
brought this sorry, ignoble fate upon himself that he might own one
moment in her thoughts, one glance of her eye, that he might sing
his song to her ear? He had certainly achieved this, he thought
sardonically. She would doubtless remember him to the last day she
should live. He wondered if they would iron him in the presence of
the ladies. Could he count upon his strong young muscles to obey
his will and submit without resistance when the officers should lay
their hands upon him, and thus avoid a scene?
And all at once—perhaps it was the sweet look in her face that made
all gentle things seem possible—it occurred to him that he despaired
too easily. An arrest might not be in immediate contemplation,—the
corpus delicti was impossible of proof. He could surely make such
disposition of his own property as seemed to him fit, and the
explanation that he was at odds with his friends, dead-broke, thrown
out of business in the recent panic, might pass muster with the rural
officer, since no crime could be discovered to involve the destruction
of the clothes. Thus he might still remain unidentified with Lucien
Royce, who pretended to be dead and was alive, who had had in
trust a large sum of money in a belt which was found upon another
man, robbed, and perhaps murdered for it. The sheriff of Kildeer
County had never dreamed of the like of that, he was very sure.
The next moment his heart sank like lead, for there amongst the
audience, quite distinct in the glooms, was the sharp, keen, white
face of a man he had seen before,—a detective. It was but once, yet,
with that idea of crime rife in his mind, he placed the man instantly.
He remembered a court-room in Memphis, during the trial of a
certain notable case, where he had chanced to loiter in the tedium of
waiting for a boat on one of his trips through the city, and he had
casually watched this man as he gave his testimony. His presence
here was significant, conclusive, to be interpreted far otherwise than
any mission of the sheriff of the county. Royce did not for one
moment doubt that it was in the interests of the Marble Company, the
tenants of the estate per autre vie, although the criminal charge
might emanate directly from the firm whose funds had so
mysteriously disappeared from his keeping, whose trust must now
seem so basely betrayed. There was no possible escape; the stanch
walls of the building were unbroken even by a window, and the only
exit from behind the partition was through the stage itself in full view
of the watchful eyes of the officers. Any effort, any action, would
merely accelerate the climax, precipitate the shame of the arrest he
dreaded,—and in her presence! He felt how hard the heart of the
cestui que vie was thumping at the prospect of the summary
resuscitation. He said to himself, with his ironical habit of mind, that
he had found dying a far easier matter. But there was no responsive
satire in the hunted look of his hot, wild, glancing eyes, the quiver of
every muscle, the cold thrills that successively trembled through the
nervous fibres. He looked so unlike himself for the moment, as he
turned with a violent start on feeling the touch of a hand on his arm,
that Seymour paused with some deprecation and uncertainty. Then
with a renewed intention the manager said persuasively, “You won’t
mind doing it over again, will you? You see they won’t be content
without it.”
A certain element of surprise was blended with the manager’s
cogitations which he remembered afterward rather than realized at
the moment. It had to do with the altered aspect of the man,—a
sudden grave tumultuous excitement which his manner and glance
bespoke; but the perception of this was subacute in Seymour’s mind
and subordinate to the awkward dilemma in which he found himself
as manager of the little enterprise. There was not time, in justice to
the rest of the programme, to repeat the basket trick, and had the
farce been the work of another he would have rung the curtain up
forthwith on its first scene. But the pride and sensitiveness of the
author forbade the urging of his own work upon the attention of an
audience still clamorously insistent upon the repetition of another
attraction, and hardly likely, if balked of this, to be fully receptive to
the real merits of the little play.
Seymour remembered afterward, but did not note at the time, the
obvious effort with which the juggler controlled his agitation. “Oh,
anything goes!” he assented, and in a moment more the curtain had
glided up with less than its usual convulsive resistance. They were
standing again together with composed aspect in the brilliance of the
footlights, and Seymour, with a change of phrase and an elaboration
of the idea, was dilating afresh upon the essential values of the
positive in life; the possible pernicious effects of any delusion of the
senses; the futility of finding pleasure in the false, simply because of
the flagrancy of its falsity; the deleterious moral effects of such
exhibitions upon the very young, teaching them to love the acrobatic
lie instead of the lame truth,—from all of which he deduced the
propriety of tying the juggler up for the rest of the evening. But the
bullet-heads were not as dense as they looked. They learned well
when they learned at all, and the pauses of this rodomontade were
filled with callow chuckles and shrill whinnies of appreciative delight,
anticipative of the wonder to come. They now viewed with eager
forwarding interest the juggler’s bonds, little dreaming what grim
prophecy he felt in their restraint, and the smallest boy of the lot
shrilly sang out, when all was done, “Give him another turn of the
rope!”
Seymour, his blond face flushed by the heat and his exertions to the
hue of his pink-and-white blazer, ostentatiously wrought another
knot, and down the juggler went on the floor, encased in the
unbroken netting; the cloth was thrown over the man and the basket,
and Seymour turned anew to the audience and took up the thread of
his discourse. It came as trippingly off his tongue as before, and in
the dusky gray-purple haze, the seeming medium in which the
audience sat, fair, smiling faces, full of expectation and attention,
looked forth their approval, and now and again broke into laughter.
When, having concluded by announcing that he intended to convey
the discomfited juggler off the stage, he found naught under the cloth
but the empty net without a mesh awry, the man having escaped, his
rage was a trifle more pronounced than before. With a wild gesture
he tossed the net out to the spectators to bid them observe how the
villain had outwitted him, and then sprang into the basket and
stamped tumultuously all around in the interior, evidently covering
every square inch of its surface, while the detective’s keen eyes
watched with an eager intensity, as if the only thought in his mind
concerned the miracle of the juggler’s withdrawal. Out Seymour
plunged finally, and with dogged resolution he put the lid on and
began to cord up the basket as if for departure.
“Save the little you’ve got left,” whinnied out a squirrel-toothed mouth
from the front bench, almost too broadly a-grin for articulation.
“Get a move on ye,—get a move!” shouted another of the callow
youngsters, reveling in the fictitious plight of the discomfited
manager as if it were real.
He seemed to resent it. He looked frowningly over the footlights at
the front row, as it hugged itself and squirmed on the bench and
cackled in ecstasy.
“I wish I had him here!” he exclaimed gruffly. “I’d settle him—with this
—and this—and this!” Each word was emphasized with the
successive thrusts of the sharp blade of the bowie-knife through the
wickerwork.
“That’s enough! That’s enough!” the remonstrant elderly gentleman
in the audience admonished him, and he dropped the blade and
came forward to beg indulgence for the unseemly and pitiable
position in which he found himself placed. He had barely turned his
back for a moment, when this juggler whom he had taken so much
pains to secure, in order to protect the kind and considerate
audience from further deceits of a treacherous art, mysteriously
disappeared, and whither he was sure he could not imagine. He
hesitated for a moment and looked a trifle embarrassed, for this was
the point at which the basket should begin to roll along the floor. He
gave it a covert glance, but it was motionless where he had left it.
Raising his voice, he repeated the words as with indignant
emphasis, thinking that the juggler had not caught the cue. He went
on speaking at random, but his words came less freely; the audience
sat expectant; the basket still lay motionless on the floor. Seeing that
he must needs force the crisis, he turned, exclaiming with uplifted
hands, “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that basket stirring, rolling on
the floor?”
But no; the basket lay as still as he had left it. There was a moment
of tense silence in the audience. His face grew suddenly white and
chill, his eyes dilated—fixed on something dark, and slow, and
sinuous, trickling down the inclined plane of the stage. He sprang
forward with a shrill exclamation, and, catching up the bowie-knife,
severed with one stroke the cords that bound the basket.
“Are you hurt?” he gasped in a tremulous voice to the silence
beneath the lid, and as he tossed it aside he recoiled abruptly, rising
to his feet with a loud and poignant cry, “Oh, my God! he is dead! he
is dead!”
The sudden transition from the purely festival character of the
atmosphere to the purlieus of grim tragedy told heavily on every
nerve. There was one null moment blank of comprehension, and
then women were screaming, and more than one fainted; the clamor
of overturned benches added to the confusion, as the men, with grim
set faces and startled eyes, pressed forward to the stage; the
children cowered in mute affright close below the footlights, except
one small creature who thought it a part of the fun, not dreaming
what death might be, and was laughing aloud in high-keyed mirth
down in the dusky gloom. A physician among the summer
sojourners, on a flying visit for a breath of mountain air, was the first
man to reach the stage, and, with the terror-stricken Seymour, drew
the long lithe body out and straightened it on the floor, as the curtain
was lowered to hide the ghastly mise en scène which it might be
terror to women and children to remember. His ready hand desisted
after a glance. The man had died from the first stroke of the bowie-
knife, penetrating his side, and doubtless lacerating the outer tissues
of the heart. The other strokes were registered,—the one on his
hand, the other, a slight graze, on the neck. A tiny package had
fallen on the floor as the hasty hands had torn the shirt aside from
the wound: the deft professional fingers unfolded it,—a bit of faded
flower, a wild purple verbena; the physician looked at it for a
moment, and tossed it aside in the blood on the floor, uninterested.
The pericardium was more in his line. He was realizing, too, that he
could not start to-morrow, as he had intended, for his office and his
rounds among his patients. The coroner’s jury was an obstinate
impediment, and his would be expert testimony.
Upon this inquest, held incongruously enough in the ballroom, the
facts of the information which Owen Haines had brought to the
juggler and the presence of the officers in the audience were elicited,
and added to the excitements incident to the event. The friends of
young Seymour, who was overwhelmed by the tragedy, believed and
contended that since escape from prosecution for some crime was
evidently impossible, the juggler had in effect committed suicide by
holding up his left arm that the knife might pierce a vital part. Thus
they sought to avert the sense of responsibility which a man must
needs feel for so terrible a deed wrought, however inadvertently, by
his own hand. But crime as a factor seemed doubtful. The sheriff,
indeed, upon the representations of Sims, supplemented by the
mystery of the lime-kiln which Knowles had disclosed, had induced
the detective to accompany him to the mountains to seek to identify
the stranger as a defaulting cashier from one of the cities for whose
apprehension a goodly amount of money would be paid. But in no
respect did Royce correspond to the perpetrator of any crime upon
the detective’s list.
“He needn’t have been afraid of me,” he observed dryly; “I saw in a
minute he wasn’t our fellow. And I was just enjoying myself mightily.”
The development of the fact of the presence of the officers and the
juggler’s knowledge that they were in the audience affected the
physician’s testimony and his view of the occurrence. He accounted
it an accident—the nerve of the young man, shaken by the natural
anxiety at finding himself liable to immediate arrest, was not
sufficient to carry him through the feat; he failed to shift position with
the celerity essential to the basket trick, and the uplifting of the arm,
which left the body unprotected to receive the blow, was but the first
effort to compass the swift movements necessary to the feat. The
unlucky young manager was exonerated from all blame in the
matter, but the verdict was death by accident.
Nevertheless, throughout all the years since, the argument
continues. Along the verge of those crags overlooking the valley, in
the glamours of a dreamy golden haze, with the amethystine
mountains on the horizon reflecting the splendors of the sunset sky,
and with the rich content of the summer solstice in the perfumed air;
or amongst the ferns about the fractured cliffs whence the spring
wells up with a tinkling tremor and exhilarant freshness and a cool,
cool splashing as of the veritable fountain of youth; or in the
shadowy twilight of the long, low building where the balls go crashing
down the alleys; or sometimes even in the ballroom in pauses of the
dance when the music is but a plaint, half-joy, half-pain, and the wind
is singing a wild and mystic refrain, and the moonlight comes in at
the windows and lies in great blue-white silver rhomboids on the floor
despite the dull yellow glow of the lamps,—in all these scenes which
while yet in life Lucien Royce haunted, with a sense of exile and a
hopeless severance, as of a man who is dead, the mystery of his
fate revives anew and yet once more, and continues unexplained.
Conjecture fails, conclusions are vain, the secret remains. Hey!
Presto! The juggler has successfully exploited his last feat.
 The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUGGLER
***

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