I smiled. Genuinely. “Good to know.” I glanced at the insignia on the breast of his jumpsuit indicating he was a Beast Shifter. Demon gifted.
I think I just made my first friend. “Shall we?” I gestured to the cages.
He looked apprehensively at Tiffany, who’d just picked up a large sword that was glowing quite brightly in her hands.
“Ladies first.” He winked.
Great.
Taking a deep breath, I walked slowly past one cage, feeling for something that made me want to love it as much as I did coffee, but I came up with nothing. I passed to the second cage, filled with a bunch of bows and arrows. Luke was lingering behind me, and stopped to gasp a little at the cage holding the bows. I went still, pivoting to look at him as he reached for a solid gold bow. As his hand moved closer, the bow started to glow a faint blue.
“Ah, the arrows of truth. A very fine weapon, young man. You should be honored,” Mr. Claymore stated.
When Luke’s hand curled around the bow, his lips popped open in surprise. One by one, the students found their glowy weapons; upon retrieving them, they went to the back of the room to wait.
There were only three of us left now, and I had passed by nearly every cage. My heart started beating crazily in my chest. What if I don’t have an infinity weapon? Should I just grab one and fake it? But if I did that, it probably wouldn’t light up.
The last two students found their weapons, and then all eyes were on me. Luke was the only one giving me a look of pity; everyone else seemed… annoyed, like, God why do we have to wait for her?
“This is not a process we rush. Take your time, Brielle,” the professor announced, making me even more mortified.
As I stepped over to the last case, I felt something stir within me. My stomach churned with excitement, and it felt like I was standing near open electricity. I scanned the rows of daggers, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.
‘Over here, winged one,’ a small female voice said inside my head, making me leap backward two feet.
Now the class was really staring at me, but not as hard as the professor. He stepped closer, gaping at me like I was topless, or something.
‘Second row, third one over. Come on, love, let’s get this over with. I’ve been waiting a long time for this,’ the tiny voice spoke again.
Holy mother of all things crazy.
‘You’re… talking to me?’ I said, wondering if I’d finally lost my mind. I was overdue.
She gave a little groan. ‘Second row, third one over. Come on, hon. You can do it.’
Now I was taking far too long and looking far too stupid. In a rush, I charged the case and grabbed the silver dagger that was in the second row, third one over. When I wrapped my fingers around it, a blinding light shot out, at the same time that a great energy ripped through me. It was hard to describe—it was pleasure, the kind I would feel if I got to see my dad again, but mixed with a tremendous power, like I could rip a steel door in half. My wings popped out of my back, causing the entire class to gasp, and I was brought to my knees as the power continued to swirl around me, the breeze lifting my hair.
‘I’m Sera,’ the dagger told me. I felt her, like she was a person, an old friend. It was the weirdest and yet most comforting thing I’d ever experienced.
‘Brielle, but you can call me Bri.’ I felt stupid introducing myself to a knife, but hey, there were weirder things in the world.
“Incredible,” the professor breathed.
The wind had died down, and although my legs were shaky, I was able to stand. All I could do was stare at the dagger in my hands. It was about nine inches long, most of that the blade, with a short golden hilt that was engraved and encrusted with shimmery pearl-like stones.
“A seraph blade. I didn’t even know we had one in there,” Mr. Claymore gushed.
He walked over to the case I’d retrieved it from, grabbed a black leather scabbard and handed it to me. It looked only big enough to attach around my thigh, so that’s where I buckled it.
“Has anyone learned of the seraph blade in history class?” he asked.
My eyes widened. Oh my God, he’s going to make a lesson out of this.
A short brown-haired girl with freckles raised her hand. “Doesn’t it somehow magnify the user’s inner light, or something?”
Tiffany laughed, pointing at my wings. “That might be a problem in this case.”
Luke growled at her, an honest animal growl, and she shut up. He was totally my new friend.
Mr. Claymore nodded. “Partly right, but that is only one feature. If she were fighting to save someone she loved, the light would be extremely bright. If she were protecting herself or other acquaintances, it would be less harmful. The light of true love, coming through a seraph blade, is said to eviscerate a demon without making a single cut.”
And by the mercy of God, the bell rang then. With a relieved sigh, I turned to follow Luke outside so we could make our way to our final class before lunch—battle class.
“Stop!” the professor roared.
The entire class froze.
He held out his hands. “You must give your weapon a taste of your blood, to bind to it for eternity.”
I was glad to see my eyes weren’t the only ones that bugged out. Tiffany was the first to pierce her hand with her giant sword, as if the idea of feeding a weapon her blood didn’t bother her. Then everyone followed suit. Luke looked at me and shrugged, poking his palm with one of his arrows.
Pulling Sera out, I made a small slice across my palm. I wasn’t even sure I’d cut myself until the blood bubbled up. It didn’t even hurt, just felt weird, like I’d put a piece of cold ice on my palm. A blue light shot out of the hilt, and swirled around my torso, making gooseflesh break out on my arms.
That earned me a dozen more stares, including the professor.
“All right, go in peace,” he said to the group.
When I looked up, he was watching me with glowing silver eyes.
As Luke and I walked to battle class together, I tried to get my wings to go back in, but they weren’t cooperating. At one point my wing accidentally brushed against Tiffany—who I now lovingly referred to as Bitchany—and she shrieked, asking for holy water. When everyone laughed, I kept my chin up. I wasn’t going to let her get me down.
The Nightbloods had to travel the school in underground tunnels because they couldn’t be exposed to the sunlight, so they were waiting for us inside the gymnasium first. The same one I’d learned to fly in that morning.
The hour passed quickly with basic weapon holding positions. Before I knew it, I was eating lunch with Luke and his demon-gifted friends on the right half of the cafeteria. The left half was unofficially for the angel blessed. Arguably, I was angel blessed since I was a Celestial, but the red crescent moon on my forehead and black wings spoke otherwise. Besides, I wanted to get to know Luke better.
Luke had an older sister, Angela, who was a Necromancer and two grades above us. “Oh, man, I still remember the day I got my infinity weapon.” She was grinning, looking at Luke’s bow and arrow. “Mom will be real proud.”
He nodded. “And Dad?”
Her face fell. “Yeah, I meant Mom and Dad.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Don’t bother, I know what you meant.”
I kept my eyeballs on my mashed potatoes.
“My mom and dad are both angel blessed,” he explained.
“Ah.” Some families had a weird thing where they wanted their kids to be like them. My mom had wanted me to be a Necromancer so we could work together, but we’d ended up working together anyway.
“No issue with my being gay, but he threw a fit when he found out I was a Beast and demon gifted,” he said to his broccoli.
Angela chewed her lip. She had long inky black hair, and was quite pretty with green eyes, and high cheekbones. “He’ll get over it.”
Then her eyes flicked up behind me, and her back went ramrod straight. “Oh my God, Lincoln Grey is walking over here.”
I froze, swallowing my mashed potatoes quickly, and turned my head just as he said my name.