to see Villicus’s old jeweled bag, the one he used to transport vials in only to throw them off the cliff. Has Dia got someone to expel? There’s no bag at his feet. It’s just him. He’s traded his ringleader attire for normal human clothes: he’s wearing Doc Martens, fitted jeans, and a big woolly cardigan; his hands are stuffed in the pockets. The cold evening air has colored his cheeks and made his dark eyes glossy. Looking as he does, he could be on a photo shoot for J.Crew.
“Come,” he says. “Stand by me. Take a look at this spectacular seascape.”
The last thing I want is to make nice with the newest devil to curse my life with his presence. When he notices my hesitation, he chuckles.
“Are you cold? Take my sweater.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s no problem. I’ve got fire and brimstone built into my bones. Keeps me toasty warm.” He waves to get my attention when I don’t react. “Hello? That was a joke.”
“Right.” I wonder if Ben’s on his way to Gigi’s already. Is he planning to break the bad news to me that he and Garnet have finally declared their love for one another? “I should get back to campus.”
“What did you come up here for? Planning your next escape?”
“I don’t know why I’m here.”
“To celebrate your victory over Mephistopheles.”
Our eyes meet. I’m the first to look away. “There was no victory.”
“I beg to differ.” He holds his hand out for me. “Come.”
I don’t take it, but I reluctantly shuffle to stand at his side. Thick rain has started to fall again. We stare through it and over the pinkish-gray ocean. Droplets make disappearing divots in the low waves across the water. The setting sun will soon take its warm glow to the mainland. I should leave, but I don’t know where I’d go.
“Imagine all of this as your kingdom,” he says. “Only a fool would risk losing something so beautiful.”
“Some people don’t feel worthy of beauty.”
“Those people are the world’s biggest fools. Beauty is a human birthright. Your souls are by far the loveliest entities I’ve ever beheld, but this landscape—this world—is a close second. Fools turn from it.”
“Physical beauty is impermanent,” I counter absently. “Some would say fools fixate on it.”
I see his mouth drooping in disappointment for perhaps the first time since he glimpsed his reflection in the water. I don’t want to risk the ire of this devil leader; as nice as he may be acting, I know it’s all just an act. So I backtrack. If he wants to be dazzled by beauty, who am I to stop him? Ben dazzled me, and I would have rather never been woken from that trance.
“That’s what artists are for,” I offer. “We preserve beauty as we see it, Headmaster.”
“Call me D.”
That’s not gonna happen.
“So,” I say, wishing he would leave and wondering if I should, “when did you find out you were being sent here?”
“Sent here?” He tsks. “I came. Intentionally.”
“To build the college?”
“If you think any devil gives a damn about educating the masses.”
“So why, then? Why are you here—aside from replacing our shamed ex-headmaster?”
“Why are you here?”
I scoff. “A devil wants my dad’s network, and he got a demon to bring me here.”
“Is that really the reason?”
He stares ahead. I glance at him, wondering what he means, and in that second, I can’t help but deconstruct his profile as any artist would do. Each of his features is flawed, yet in combination they’re striking. Little wonder he was as taken by his reflection in the water as Narcissus.
“You’re an artist, Anne?”
“In some sense of the word.” I wipe raindrops from my face. “It’s hard to be an artist when your every move is graded. Not much room for creative license.” I catch him looking at me in the strangest way, as if he’s deconstructing me like I did him. There’s something about him. A familiarity. “Have I seen you before? Did you visit Cania last week or something?”
He shakes his head no. He looks like he’s about to add something, but his glistening stare drifts to the entry point of the cliff-top. I follow his gaze to find Ben, out of breath and looking bewildered, standing in the shadows at the top of the slick hill. He is watching us just as I watched him and Garnet. How did he know I was up here? Or did he?
“Am I interrupting?” Ben asks us.
“Mr. Zin,” Dia says. “This must be a popular spot.”
Dia moves to help Ben up the last step of the steep hill. The three of us stand awkwardly—at least, it feels awkward to me—until Dia realizes Ben and I are not leaving. He wraps himself tighter in his cardigan, nods our way, and retreats easily down the slippery path to campus, vanishing in the brush.
That leaves me alone with Ben.
“Did you already go to Gigi’s?” I ask him.
He’s still trying to catch his breath. “There and back. Mr. Watso was there, and so was Gigi—vivified Gigi. They were dragging her remains into the water.”
“You saw them?”
“They told me you hadn’t come by. I had a hunch you’d be here.”
Silence settles over us like the cold rain on our hair. Ben and I are separated by a mere three feet. That’s not a lot of room to cross, but right now it feels like the English Channel. Whatever miracle brought down the walls around him and around me last night is unlikely to make a reappearance. Too much has happened.
It’s not just Garnet.
It’s that the thing we created together—my escape—failed spectacularly. How can we move past that?
“You’re shivering,” Ben says at last.
I hadn’t noticed. I feel like we’ve been standing in the cold for a lifetime—a proper one, not a Cania one—when Ben takes off his school blazer and wraps it around my shoulders.
I thank him.
He says it’s no problem.
Our voices are quieter than they should be. They are, like the inches of physical space between us, bricks rebuilding the walls. If I were Garnet, I could get close to him, I could kiss him like she easily did and laugh with him like she easily did. Instead, I rock on my heels and try not to shiver too noticeably. He’s going to think we ought to go in to escape the rain, and then what? And then it’s all over, like it never happened? We can’t leave.
