Page 39 of Angel Lost (Fates Academy #3)

Chapter Thirty-nine: Lorelei

As soon as my feet hit aether academy soil I start my search again. Except this time, I’m looking for Reye. She’s in trouble with Davina, and it’s my fault. Despite her stupid affected mannerisms, Reye isn’t all that bad.

Her room, however, is resolutely empty. What is this? Hide from Lorelei day? When she’s not meditating, not in the canteen, and not in classes, I give up and ask. None of the students know, except Nyx. That girl sees everything.

“In the treatment facility, and it’s not even her day” is all she’ll give me. But the little furrow between her eyebrows has my lunch settling in my stomach like lead.

It is Kai’s day, though. He mentioned it before I left. A quick tug on the ley lines and a message pings his way, telling him to meet me after his session.

Afternoon classes drag, each minute stretching unbearably. Reye’s absence gnaws at the edges of my thoughts, something about it wrong. The second the bell stops ringing, my feet are already moving—out the door, across the grounds.

A weeping willow outside the treatment facility offers cover. I lean against its trunk, arms folded tight, waiting.

Kai better meet me.

Every time the door opens, I straighten, the hanging branches brushing the top of my head. A few students exit, walking cautiously down the path back to the dorms, legs wobbly, features pinched. A couple of angels in white lab coats step out next and stand in the weak evening sunshine, clearly having a break.

“It seems a little harsh to send her back to second stage,” the older of the two says, drawing on a tiny black cigarette.

“It will teach her to stay in line,” the other replies. “Plus, it’ll only make her more pliable. The king will be thankful.”

Reye. They’re talking about Reye.

The older angel stubs his cigarette out on the ground, nudging the butt under the outermost branches of my tree. I freeze. “If she makes it that far. We’ve never forced someone to redo,” he adds. “King won’t thank us if she doesn’t make it.”

“She’ll make it.” The angel’s sinister smile makes my blood run cold. “She just might not be quite the same afterward.”

They vanish back inside. Reye’s being punished for helping me. She didn’t even do much. I didn’t get far with her map before I found Kai. So really, she did nothing. And I’ve been, what? Partying it up with some demons from another dimension while she’s going through goddesses know what.

“Boo.”

I shriek, swinging round and lashing out in the same breath. My fist connects with a crunch, and Kai doubles over.

“Are you shitting me, L?” he gasps.

“I’m sorry!”

“You can punch harder than that, and what in all the hells was that scream?”

I stare at him, then burst out laughing. I offer him my hand, and he takes it, pulling me down to the dirt with him. I land with a surprised oomph on top of him.

Kai grins up at me, our noses less than an inch apart. “If you wanted to get up close, you only had to say… ”

Sneaky…I scowl, ignoring the way my breath catches and my pulse kicks up.

With a smoothness I can only marvel at, he flips us. His weight presses into me and my mind blanks. Kai abruptly jumps to his feet, yanking me up behind him, and strides out from under the cover of the tree.

“What did you want, aether?” he asks coldly.

Asshole . As I go to answer, his eyes flick to the little blinking light above the door. Fuck. Cameras everywhere. Does this one have audio?

“I…wanted to ask questions about my aether and the rip at Fates,” I fumble. “I was looking for a professor, but I guess you might know.”

Kai gives me an imperceptible nod of approval.

“We can walk and talk. I’m on a tight schedule.” Kai tows me behind him into the treatment facility. We trail down a few corridors in silence before he yanks a door open seemingly at random and shoves me inside. He steps in quickly behind me. My back hits a wall.

“What the hell? A broom closet?” I hiss.

“No cameras, plus…you seemed to like getting close.” He grins, flashing his incisors. “Now what is it, little aether?”

I shove his chest. “I need help finding my friend.”

“Lost her? Careless.”

This time I smack him hard. “She’s being punished for helping me.”

Kai cocks his head. “Actions have consequences.”

I ignore him. “The angels in lab coats said she’s been sent back to the second stage.”

Kai stills. “What? That’s not right. Okay, we’ll find her. But we go in disguise. Too many cameras.”

“You’ll tattoo me, like Farrell? Can you make me a man? I always wanted to know what it’d feel like to have a—”

“No! No, Lorelei. No dicks. There’s no time for a tattoo…I can do some illusion work, it’ll last an hour or so, and cameras can’t even see through this one.” He offers me a wicked smile. “It’s a fae trick. ”

“A dark trick?”

“Maybe. You want to go or not?” He holds out a hand and I interlace my fingers with his.

His other hand starts to weave intricate patterns around us. A low hum reverberates through the closet, the bucket next to my feet clattering over, drawn to his magnetism. A dark kind of energy pools around him, an inky mist that curls around the pair of us. The outline of his body shimmers, rearranging, reshaping. Mine has too. I feel no different, but my trunk is broader, my legs thick and hairy under the robe. He did make me a guy. I wiggle surreptitiously, disappointed not to feel a dick knock against my legs. Apparently, he didn’t do a complete illusion.

Kai orients the map Reye made with ease when I show him. Her funny scribbles were stairs. Of course they were. My calves ache from all the flights we descend. You’d never know we were so deep underground—the harsh strip lights make it brighter than a summer’s day. But far less friendly.

We reach a large set of steel doors with a keypad and card swipe to the side. Shit. The dean took back the access card I had. Kai, looking for all the world like the angel professor for meditation, steps up to the doors. He glances back over his shoulder.

“Sure about this? You’re sure they said back to second stage?”

“Yes.”

Kai sends a pulse of energy into the reader and quickly plugs in a code. The doors swing open, revealing a long white corridor that smells of cleaning chemicals. He yanks my arms, propelling me inside.

“Move it, idiot,” he hisses. “Even the professors we’re disguised as shouldn’t be down here at this time of day. But second stage is this way.”

My feet lead me toward a large glass wall.

No. No, no, no. This is too much.

The room behind the glass has no obvious door. No way in or out. The supe inside—not Reye—lies strapped down, wrists and ankles bound to a metal bed frame, her movements retrained by bands of iron. A tangle of wires coils around her chest, sensors attached like a crazed spiderweb, pulsing faintly. Sinister obsidian electrodes sit on her temples, wires leading away from them like tendrils of evil. The hum of the machines reaches me through the glass. At a loud, warning beep, the supe’s eyes dart around frantically. A jolt of electricity travels through her, the machines all working at once. Her jaw clenches, then her entire body spasms and her eyes roll back.

Kai tugs my arm, but I can’t look away. Her screams echo in my ears long after she’s unconscious.

“What new hell is this?”

Kai grips my chin, turning my head away from the room behind the glass. “This is second stage, Lorelei.”

I swallow. “You’ve been through this? This is what my friend was sent back to?”

“Yes, I’ve been through this but—” Kai scowls. “—no one ever needs to go backward. You’re right—they’re punishing her. And…it might break her.”

I stare at the girl behind the glass. Her head lolls sideways, eyes glassy, unseeing.

Kai coughs. “That girl in there signed up for this. Your friend did too. We all did.”

“Yeah, but why? Half the kids seem blackmailed, coerced.”

Kai gives me an agitated shrug and drags me on down the corridor. The kid in the next room is draped in a generic robe and strapped to the same machines, his mouth contorted in a snarl as Kai marches me past. We pass the next, and the next. How many of them are like this? It’s…I plant my feet firmly, jerking Kai to a stop. Pressing my face against the glass, I smack my bunched fist against the window.

“I know this kid,” I hiss.

“Shh.” Kai glances nervously over his shoulder .

“Are you sure? Normally the kids in second stage haven’t started the Gifted Academy yet.”

I tilt my head, peering at the teen. “He’s one of the missing kids. He’s a Maverik.”

Beside me Kai lets out a low groan. He leans sideways, resting his head on the sickly white wall. Then, he yanks back and violently smashes his head against the plaster.

I reach out to him, but he shakes me off.

“Knew it. I knew that bitch was up to something,” he snarls. “Should have listened.”

His face is a mask. It looks like Kai but…it’s freaking me out.

He straightens, shakes his head, and says, “This way, we get in around the back. The machines are done. His session’s finished. We can get him out.”

I follow him blindly, tripping over my feet. We take a sharp right, then right again, and slip through an innocuous door. The tiny corridor beyond is so narrow that Kai’s shoulders brush the walls on either side. He counts back our steps, pausing at a small hatch. Flicking it open, I peek inside. Yep. Same kid.

With a grimace, Kai places his hands on either side of the control panel and blasts the thing. With a metallic groan it splits in half, and the doors open a half inch.

“Very subtle.”

He growls. “You got a better idea?”

Together we haul the doors farther open, the mechanics completely fried. As soon as it’s wide enough, I slip into the room and quickly set about turning off all the machines I can find. Kai works his knife into each strap holding the kid down, sawing away at the connections until they give. The boy sits, expressionless, staring into space. I gently peel the electrodes from his head, wiping the sticky gel away with my sleeve. He blinks .

“Hey, it’s Lorelei. You remember me?” I say quietly, keeping my tone reassuring as we work to free him. “I’m Chano’s Aeternum? Chano Maverik.”

At the Maverik name his body jerks. We ease him out the chair. He seems stiff, sore, and there’s a whiff of urine. How long has he been here? He doesn’t even try to talk, and his expression doesn’t change. He follows instructions slowly, cautiously. But there’s nothing behind his eyes. With a robotic kind of shuffle, he follows Kai out of the room, and I take up the rear, knife out, senses on high alert.

“Kai?”

He grunts as we slip into the main corridor once more.

“Kai, what now?”

“The only portal open is my stepmom’s office. And we need to find someone to wipe the cameras.”

“Can’t you create a static illusion that he’s still in there? They clearly haven’t checked on him in a while.” He halts. “You cast the illusion, and I’ll manipulate the ley lines. Make it so unless people are really determined they won’t actually go in to check on him. They’ll see your illusion through the glass and be put off from going around the back by my magic. Would that work?”

Kai whirls. “Lorelei, you genius!” He grins, and a warmth settles in my chest.

It doesn’t take long for either of us to set up the magic. It takes significantly longer to drag the kid away from the window. He stands, forehead to the glass, hands flat to the pane, staring at the illusion of himself. Eventually we half drag, half carry him away.

“Quickest way out is straight ahead—next stairs, opposite exit,” Kai barks, peering at the map, suddenly all efficiency. “Less time in here, the better.”

We round the corner, and my steps falter .

The corridor is cold; the kind of sterile, institutional chill that seeps into the bones. The walls press in too close. A heavy metal door beside me draws my eye. The room visible beyond thick, reinforced glass is more like a cell.

Lottie.

Kai turns, eyebrows raised. His gaze follows mine.

“Chano’s sister.” My voice shakes as I point through the small glass window.

Kai stiffens, then instinctively steps back.

“How do I get to her?” Urgency knots in my chest. “How do I get her out?”

“We can’t.” His arm tightens around my waist, tugging me back. “She’s mid-session. We don’t know what stage she’s in. If it’s first stage, that’s the most precarious—it could kill her.”

“Shit!” Frustration boils over, and my palm smacks against the glass.

Inside, Lottie blinks.

“Move, Lorelei. The less time we’re here, the less likely my stepmom and her angels will work out we know, and the more time we have to get Lottie out.”

I let him lead us forward, but my heart is breaking. How can I just leave her? But Kai is talking sense, for once.

I don’t look back. I can’t.