Chapter 1

1

“Please, someone. Kill me. Kill me now.”

“Aiden! Don’t say that. It’s dangerous,” Cassandra Koo prodded his thigh with the extremely pointy toe of her boot, but he just shook her off without lifting his head from the pile of exam books scattered over his desk. She prodded him harder. “Aiden! I’m talking to you.”

“Ow!” Aiden Lobo snapped his head up to glare at her, rubbing his thigh where she’d jabbed him. Two exam books slid over the edge of the desk to flutter sadly to the worn wooden floor. “What was that for?”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Like that actually hurt, you big baby.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms in one practiced move. Her hair was jet black and so thick, Aiden occasionally wondered how she didn’t snap her neck when she did that. “Be careful what you wish for, remember? Do you wantsomeone to hear you and think you mean it?”

Aiden snorted and shook his head. “I’m sure that whichever deity happens to be listening can tell the difference between hyperbole and a genuine request, Cass.” He bent down and snatched the two exam books off the floor, then scowled at them before slapping them back onto the pile. “Mr. Sneddon here wrote a detailed essay on how the Diet of Worms, rather than, say, having anything to do with the Protestant Reformation, was apparently a meal fed to elder demons so they wouldn’t destroy Nuremberg in 1521.” He took off his glasses, then closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, grimacing at the indent his glasses had left there. “How could he get the year right but nothing else? The first confirmed Crack only appeared in 1915.”

“Well, that was the confirmed one,” Cassandra said diplomatically. “You know there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence from before that.”

“Not at the Diet of freaking Worms.”

“Fine, then. Was it funny, at least?” She tapped the equally large stack of her portion of the exam. “One of mine confused Archangel Michael with Michelangelo. That was kind of hilarious.”

“No.” Aiden slid his glasses back on, shoving his hair away so the lenses wouldn’t trap any of it over his eyes. It’d officially grown out of “too long” into “shaggy,” but he never had time to cut it. Unlike Cassandra, whose fair skin contrasted beautifully with her dark hair and eyes, Aiden had not terribly remarkable, almost-black hair that more or less complemented his light brown skin. He did think his eyes were cool, though. Cassandra said they were “whiskey colored like in a romance novel.” Tanner said they were amber, which Aiden liked even more.

But now his hair kept falling in his whiskey-amber eyes. “Hey,” he said, turning to Cassandra. “Do you know any haircutting spells?”

Cassandra didn’t even blink at his non sequitur. “I could conjure my spirit knife.”

“No, thanks.” He let out a long, frustrated sigh, then glanced at his watch and began to slide the books into a pile. “I can’t believe how late it is. I haven’t even finished half of these stupid things. Remind me to never agree to assist with a summer school course again.”

“Hey, you were an undergrad, too, once,” Cassandra said very seriously, which she immediately ruined by smirking. “A long, long, longtime ago. I’m sure you did badly on at least one freshman course. Oh. Are you leaving?”

“I’m twenty-three, which makes me exactly one year older than you. And I never confused the Diet of Worms for an actual diet.” Aiden managed to snap the three large elastic bands over the stack of exam books without getting more paper cuts, then carefully shoved them all into his messenger bag. “And yeah, I’m leaving. I can’t take any more marking tonight. Do you want me to walk you to your apartment first?”

“That’s such a kind offer.” Cassandra scraped her own stack into a loose pile and shoved it into her backpack, apparently unconcerned with crumpling the pages. The grin she gave Aiden was sly. “I’m sure you don’t have any ulterior motives, with a kind, gentlemanly offer like that.”

Aiden stopped strapping on his sword belt to frown at her. “I can be kind!”

“I know. Oh, don’t give me the sad-puppy eyes.” Cassandra came over and enveloped Aiden in one of her typically enormous hugs. “I know you really want to walk me home.”

“Well, not anymore.” Aiden tucked her head under his chin as he hugged her back. “Now I’m just going so I can see Tanner.”

Cassandra laughed. “Jerk.” She let go, then had to pull away the few of her hairs that had gotten caught on Aiden’s chin scruff. She stopped him before he could shoulder his messenger bag. “Hang on a sec. I want to redo the protection spell.”

She deftly fished under the collar of his T-shirt to pluck out the stone amulet he wore on a leather thong around his neck, then laughed at the carving of a happy face on it. “That kills me every time. You are such a hardcore nonsectarian.”

Aiden shrugged, grinning. “I needed some kind of symbol, right? You know what they say—’let a smile be your protection.’”

“That’s ‘let a smile be your umbrella,’ doofus.” Cassandra shook her head in obviously put-on exasperation. “I learned a new spell yesterday and I want to try it.”

Aiden lifted his eyebrows. “So I’m your guinea pig now? Is that even legal?”

“It’s a protection spell,” Cassandra huffed. “It’s not like I’m slapping wings on you or anything. And I practiced it loads of times, and the prof says I’m really good. So shut up.”

“Well, if the prof says you’re good, I guess it’s okay, then.” Aiden laughed when Cassandra scowled at him.