I’d like to learn more about Weyer Academy, please. We can glean from Luxuria Triplicate and its side stories that the culture is competitive, cutthroat, and status-driven. What is the admissions process like? What proportion of students actually graduate, and what do they typically do afterwards? What does it take for a student to be successful? Is Weyer emblematic of all magical schools?
we’ll get an intimate view of weyer’s inner workings eventually, but i can answer some of these now!
->weyer has a fairly intensive entrance exam that includes both a written portion and a magic practical, with the latter being weighted much more heavily than the former. it’s rumored that monetary bribes can bypass some of these hurdles and that legacy students are almost guaranteed admission, but trying to get into weyer without decent magic skill is not the wisest decision.
->graduation rates are low, maybe around 30%. coursework is grueling and some programs actively weed out students with periodic pass-fail exams. there’s also a moderately high transfer rate both in and out. graduates usually gravitate towards interplanar careers that let them work with or even in the infernal realm. many start businesses, go into politics, or pursue a career in a magic field such as elethian medicine or protective warding.
->weyer is not normal compared to most magic schools, but it is typical among “elite” magic institutions (think ivy league schools in the us).
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
a short trip back to weyer academy opens old wounds. desperate to forget your troubles for a while, you go looking for a distraction and find your demon. you might not like what he has in mind.
->luxuria triplicate, zivian/reader. explicit; contains non-con, abusive school culture, implied teacher-student relationship, mild mind control, unhealthy coping mechanisms, sexual roleplay, terato.
you've forgotten your wild night at a fae festival a week ago, but it remembers you.
->original work. explicit; contains non-con, (magical) drugging/date rape, graphic descriptions of violence, terato, feral behavior, hard vore.
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Your day has been going suspiciously well.
Despite being a ball of nerves the night before, you wake early and well-rested. Your morning commute is a comfortable train ride and leisurely walk through perfect autumn crispness, the air cool and the leaves colorful. Even the communal breakroom snacks are shockingly delicious today, an assortment of artful chocolate-drizzled, fruit-topped and sugar-powdered pastries almost too pretty to eat, although your coworkers have already decimated the macarons by the time you get there.
Then again, maybe there’s nothing suspicious about it. You’ve been overly cautious ever since the Equinox Faire for reasons that are far too embarrassing to explain to anyone else. You’d have to admit you went to the Faire in the first place—which is fine, by the way, there's nothing wrong with going to a Faire, it’s just not the kind of thing you feel like casually mentioning to your coworkers—and then you’d have to mention that you don’t even remember half of it. Drank so much you got violently ill and then stumbled home by some miracle, waking up in a daze on your living room floor.
You think something bad happened there, or almost did. Hard to say for sure. Everything’s a blur after sunset. There was live music and handicrafts and some of the most incredible food you’ve ever tasted, sweet, savory, still sizzling fresh off the grill. You met people, danced, partied hard, lost a shoe. Kind of a shame, those were your most comfortable pair of sandals. You have the distinct impression that you hooked up with someone, or tried to. Getting sick in the grass might’ve cut things short. But you woke up with the worst hangover of your life and twenty browser tabs open on your phone with searches like “howf to kno if you rhome for real not a trick/?” and “magic itw ont come off what do u do whenkmlj that happen” and most ominously, “get uncursed.”
You have no idea what happened or with who, but you do remember that unpleasant tugging sensation the morning after like you were wearing an extra, ill-fitted layer of skin. The internet says that particular blend of bleary exhaustion, lightheadedness and the tactile static of invisible cobwebs is a pretty common sign of residual magic. Someone tried casting a clingy spell, something meant to linger on a person for a while, but it sloughed off for some reason. You’ve been braced every day since for something catastrophic to happen. So far, nothing has. Maybe it was the hangover after all, or maybe it was something you drank. Some people have bad reactions to enchanted wine. You certainly weren’t going slow enough to notice.
So despite a persistent sense of unease, malaise and waiting for the other shoe to drop so palpable you can barely sit still, you tell you coworkers you’re doing “Great!” and join the pastry huddle by the breakroom counter.
“Is it somebody’s birthday? Who brought these?” James asks, staring contemplatively into the cream filling of his second chocolate eclair. “They’re so good. Like, too good. Are they supposed to be here?”
Francine shrugs. “Too late now. If DeVries comes out of his office looking for these, he’s gonna have to fight me to death for this tiramisu.”
Harper picks up the half-empty box of cannoli and turns it around a few times before she finds a logo in one of the corners. Her eyes widen. “Seelie Confectionaries. Holy shit, this is expensive.”
“It’s fae food?” James stops chewing abruptly, holding the eclair away from his face like it might bite. “Is it safe? What if it’s enchanted?”
“It’s for sure enchanted. Not like that, though. It’s just for taste.” Harper shrugs and grabs a cannoli. “I took a fae studies class forever ago. ‘Enchanted’ just means there’s magic in it. All the stuff they ship across the Veil is super strictly regulated—”
“Holy shit. Who is that?” Francine asks. She’s staring past all of you, looking at the breakroom TV on the back wall where the news has been playing at an inaudible murmur. It’s midday and there’s no bright red “BREAKING NEWS” label at the bottom so you’re expecting something inconsequential; local sports, small business puff pieces, cats being cute. You’re not prepared to see the most beautiful man alive smiling serenely into the camera. He’s standing in a park beside a starstruck reporter who can’t stop sneaking glances out of the corner of her eye. He sticks out against a backdrop of college students and dog-walkers in a double-breasted vest made of shimmering brocade, dark green with silver buttons and intricate floral patterns. The long-sleeved dress shirt underneath is shiny black silk with lace at the ends of the sleeves. His hair is midnight blue and long enough to pull back into a neat bun at the base of his neck, the silver pin holding it in place shaped like a wilting rose.
Long lashes, smokey blue eyeshadow, bright amber eyes—you’re getting the itch of deja vu in the back of your brain. Haven’t you seen this guy before?
“Goth or demon fresh out of conservatory?” James wonders. “Take your bets.”
Harper squints at the TV. “Neither. He’s fae. See the brooch? That’s a guise stabilizer.”
She’s right. It’s pinned to his left lapel, a silver circle of delicate metalwork and tiny pearls. You can barely see the green flecks pressed and preserved inside the rounded glass in the middle, but they’re definitely tiny leaves.
Then he’s gone and there’s a slow panning shot of an open field instead. A field that looks eerily familiar, you think. Francine searches frantically for the remote because the caption at the bottom hasn’t changed: “SOCIALITE’S SEARCH FOR LOVE SPARKS NATIONAL SHOE-SHOPPING FRENZY.”
“What do you suppose that means?” Harper muses.
“Not a fucking clue,” James says. “Isn’t that the fairgrounds?”
“Ohhh, I think you’re right! Wasn’t that big festival thing going on out there last weekend?” Francine asks.
Harper snorts. “You mean the orgy?” You choke on a bite of bread.
“No way,” James says.
“Okay, it’s not literally an orgy but there’s a lot of sex. That’s like half the reason people go.”
“Isn’t it dangerous? Like, super dangerous? With all the enchanted food and stuff.”
“James, listen, enchantment like the way you’re thinking isn’t something you just sprinkle in real quick. It’s a whole process. They have to know who you are and want to fuck with you specifically—”
Francine nudges you in the side. “You ever heard of anything like this?”
“Absolutely never in my whole life,” you say, coughing.
The camera cuts again and the beautiful man is back again, speaking into the microphone. Francine finds the remote just in time and starts cranking up the volume until you can actually hear what he’s saying. “…don’t often attend events of this nature very often, as you might imagine. But something was different this year. I felt uniquely compelled, as though something was waiting for me…”
Harper makes a joke about him being uniquely compelled by his dick but you’re no longer paying attention to the breakroom conversation. It’s like a dam breaks in your mind. Glimpses and snapshots suddenly come rushing back just from hearing his voice. The night was warm and flickering. Your eyes met across a bonfire. He wore nothing but full-bloom flowers and colorful, rumpled lichen, the forest wrapped around him in winding stripes like a lover’s grasping fingers. His hair was down, waist-length, a woven cord of flowering, leafy vines crowning his head. His hips swayed and his fingers curled under your chin, drawing your gaze up to meet his.
“My name is Imraude,” he said in a low, seductive purr. “And you are going to be mine.”
On TV, the camera zooms out slightly to get both him and the reporter in frame when she tilts the microphone back to ask a question. Your attention is drawn immediately to his hands, not resting at his sides but holding something the tender, gentle way a person holds a priceless glass sculpture or a kitten.
That’s a sandal. That’s your sandal. Uh oh, you think.
“And this is all you have to work with?” the reporter asks.
Imraude chuckles. “Yes, this is it. It’s common practice to use aliases or nicknames at a Faire and I don’t begrudge them for being cautious. It does make this much more difficult, though. I know how absurd these public appeals must seem, but I truly am desperate. I would do anything to see them again. We had something special, and I think they know it, too.”
It was lust at first sight. He was gorgeous, and he must’ve thought you were, too. You drifted back to the refreshments table together to chat and make sure you were both on the same page and his hand settled on your thigh. He was insistent—relentless—that you eat something. “I intend to keep you as long as I can,” he murmured. “You’ll need your strength.” It should’ve been fine. Faire food gets inspected. But did those buttery pieces of bread he pressed against your lips come from the feast on the table or somewhere else? What about those fresh, juicy berries, sweet and tart as he fed them into your mouth with his tongue? You were already tipsy at least and he told you the arcadian wine was the finest vintage you’d ever taste. You were in his lap, you think. You were eating out of his hand and he was purring praise in your ear when everything started to blur.
“In some ways,” the reporter says, snapping you out of a daze, “your strategy has backfired, hasn’t it? Saying you’re looking for the owner of the other shoe has a lot of eager bachelors and bachelorettes snapping up the exact same design. Stores across the country have completely exhausted their stock.” Unbelievable images of local shoe stores with empty spaces in the sandal section fade in one after the other, followed by online listings going for tens of thousands of dollars. You can’t believe what you’re saying. They’re not some designer brand. They’re just what you had lying around for a night out when you wanted to be comfortable and blend in with the easygoing atmosphere.
“I’m not worried about it,” Imraude assures her. He looks directly into the camera and you stop breathing. “They were unforgettable. When I see their face, I’ll know.”
You remember now. The meadow—not the fairgrounds. He brought you somewhere else. You’d looked up at the sky and even inebriated, even giggling and stumbling and feeling a little sick to your stomach, you’d noticed it wasn’t right. You could barely see it, could barely see straight at all, but you remember how your skin crawled when you looked up and couldn’t recognize the thing you saw every night. Imraude kissed you. He licked into your mouth and clutched your hips against his, and you moaned into his mouth. You tried to touch him—to pull him closer? To push him away? You remember wanting him so badly it scared you.
But you couldn’t move. Why couldn’t you move? Your arms were stuck in the air above your head and your legs wouldn’t budge. Imraude stroked your shoulders and caressed your sides and dug his fingers into your ass—all at the same time. That doesn’t make sense. You were drunk and it was dark. Is that it? It feels like you’re still forgetting something.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. You remember that. Such a gentle whisper right against your ear, but he was rough with you. He grasped you too hard with fingers that were too sharp and too many. He wanted to leave marks. “Ones only we can see,” he promised, smiling against the nervous flutter of your pulse. “So the hungry ones know who you belong to.” He bit you, over and over and over again. Sunk his fangs in—his fangs? Too sharp to be teeth, too thin and precise. It felt sharp and horrible, and then it faded to prickling pins and needles. Tactile static. Tingling, then numb, then good.
No one has ever fucked you as hard as him. If you’re lucky, no one ever will again. The more you think about it, the more you wonder how you managed to walk away. He was right up against you, fucking you standing. You couldn’t make your body do anything but he was in complete control. He curled his fingers and your legs wrapped around his waist, and then he was thrusting fast enough to knock the breath out of your lungs. His hands cupped your ass and he panted in your ear about how he would fill you every morning, day and night for the rest of time.
“I will have you,” he murmured. “Your body first. Then your mind. Then your heart.”
He made you ride him. He watched you bounce on his cock while his long, spindly fingers explored the expanse of your chest, groping, caressing, teasing your nipples. He lingered whenever he found something that made you gasp and clench around him, mercilessly exploiting every weakness. You were barely conscious. Your eyelids fluttered and struggled to stay upright. He didn’t care. He tugged your wrist to his mouth and sank his fangs in.
Or did he bite down, and tear a whole chunk of flesh from your body? He couldn’t have. You don’t have a scar there, not even a puncture. But you remember pain, searing, radiating, the rhythmic sting every time your heart pumped and more blood gushed out, and the redness of his lips as he drank everything that poured out with a groan.
He fucked you on the forest floor. Had he always been so much bigger than you? You were face-down, your back arched and your hips raised while he pounded into you, a hand on the nape of your neck and a hand on your shoulder and a hand on your hip and a hand stroking your side and more still that are just ghosts of memory. You were bleeding. You were raw and aching everywhere. He was devouring you and you were on the verge of climax with every crunching, flesh-tearing bite. Your stomach churns thinking about it. Was that real, or a nightmare? It’s so vivid in your mind.
Imraude, with your ankles hooked over his shoulders. He bent you in half so he could kiss you while he rutted slow and deep.
Imraude, with your neck between his teeth. You trembled and you wept and your head lolled back against his shoulder when his tongue dipped into the wound.
Imraude, with hands uncountable. He handled you like a doll, a plaything meant for nothing more than his amusement and pleasure.
Imraude, with—you can’t remember. It hurts to try. You think you saw something you weren’t supposed to. He didn’t make sense. When you saw the haunting, animalistic gleam of reflected moonlight, was that in just two eyes or in four? In six? In more?
He liked to finish inside you. Clutching you by the thighs and hips and stomach and shoulders, he impaled you on a long, thick cock with bumps and ridges and a slender tip that reached uncomfortably deep, and he came for such a long time that you thought you’d never be empty again. Thick, white seed squelched around his length and dripped down your inner thighs as he kept humping and grinding into your trembling body.
His voice didn’t sound human. It hadn’t since he lured you away from the fairgrounds. It was warped and echoing in your head, unnaturally deep and lightly melodic. “Does it feel good to belong to me?” he purred. “If it doesn’t yet…it will. I promise.”
You should be dead. You’re sure of it. You were more wounds than flesh when he filled you one last time. You shivered and you oozed. Imraude’s tongue filled your mouth as he pulled out one horrible, stinging inch at a time, slipping free from your abused entrance with a sickening squelch and a trickle of cum. He smoothed his palms over all the places you hurt and stole the pain. You felt distinctly that it wasn’t right. It wasn’t real healing. You had gaping holes inside of you, places where he’d stolen something. And then—he left you. Said he’d “prepare the way,” or something like that. The air quivered like a heat haze and then he was gone.
You rolled onto your side, heaving and retching, clutching your stomach. You tasted bile and acid. Everything you’d eaten at the refreshment table came back up in a stinging watercolor slurry. You felt awful. You wanted to curl up and rot. Fear drove you, hand over hand, one bruised knee and then the other. You crawled out of the meadow. You don’t know where you went or how long it took you to get there, but you knew you had to keep moving. There’s a chasm of time missing; of horrible, furious noises that made the forest shake and the scrape of your fingers through dirt, on and on until they found concrete. You’ll probably never remember everything he did trying to chase you down, but it didn’t matter. With all the food out of your system, the enchantment didn’t stick. He could purr and plead and growl all he wanted, but you were going home.
“No fucking way,” Francine says. “This can’t be real. His one night stand was gone when he woke up, so now he’s on the news? Make a Craigslist post like a normal person.”
“He’s rich,” Harper reasons. “Probably paid them to air it. A lot of the fae who end up at the Faire are rich kids from old money. Kind of crazy his family runs that Seelie snack company, though. You think he’s sending out gift boxes everywhere, or does he think his Cinderella works here?”
James tosses his eclair into the trash. “Nope. Too fucking weird. Not eating any more of these.”
You stop chewing. With a sick feeling churning in your stomach, you take another look at the pastry boxes. They’re not in pristine condition anymore, but you see the fanciful wrapping paper crumpled in the trash and the ribbons that had been tied around them. There’s a card in there, too, thoughtlessly discarded. Your name is not on that card.
But your nickname—the one you used at the Faire—is, along with a black heart.
“You okay?” Harper asks. She’s looking at you. They’re all looking, with worry and confusion.
You don’t even make an excuse. You just run. Out of the breakroom, through the hall, flinging yourself down the stairs two at a time until you hit the bottom, trying to figure out what comes next. You go home, right? Then what? Pack a bag and go on the run? It’s a coincidence. It’s a wild guess. He can’t know. You emerge in the company lobby where a small circle of people from another department are clustered around the receptionist’s desk chattering excitedly. You see a figure taller than the others. Dark blue hair. Bright yellow eyes. A smile that snags at your heart like a fish hook.
He turns towards you and you catch the briefest glimpse of that wild, possessive hunger you saw the Faire.
“Darling,” he purrs, your missing sandal clutched in one hand. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
Can you help me understand something about luxuria triplicate? What is their (end) goal with the reader? As far as I know they want their magic, right? So they struck a deal in desperation but I'm kind of having issues looking through it and was hoping you could explain it to us?
we know that luxuria wants (and is contractually owed) the reader's soul. everything beyond that is still a bit of a mystery. i got a few related questions about specific terms and plot points, and the short answer is that nothing has been straightforwardly explained on purpose. luxuria triplicate has been unfolding slowly for a few years now lol you will get answers eventually but you might also piece things together before that. every piece gives you a few more clues.
your favorite older customer who tips well and makes you feel cared for is conspicuously absent tonight. the handsome stranger in his place knows something.
->original work. contains graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore, death and mourning, brief gun violence, and implied feral behavior.
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This should be an evening like any other at Moonstruck. The mood is romantic, the view is immaculate, and the food is to die for. You seat a couple in a booth by the wall-length windows where rain patters softly on the glass and the city skyline glitters like gem-studded mountains. They’re young but they dress like old money, sleek and stunning charity ball chic in accordance with the dress code. You hand them leatherbound menus, light the candle in the center of their table, and tell them all about the seafood risotto. Chopin plays softly.
But something is amiss tonight. There’s a table for two in the corner, the candle flickering, the silverware tucked into the folds of a fabric napkin, today’s newspaper folded and waiting, and there’s nobody there. There should be by now. He should have passed his keys to the valet and handed off his jacket at the door half an hour ago. He should have sunk into the black leather upholstery with a heavy sigh and one last baleful glance at his phone before he switched it off, and all the weight of a long day should have lifted from his shoulders.
“The usual?” you’re supposed to ask.
“The usual,” he’s supposed to answer with his world-weary, grandfatherly smile. You would bring him freshly rolled, cut and boiled linguine with pesto genovese and you would grate parmesan onto that plate until you could barely see it through all the cheese. He would ask you how school’s going and scold you for pulling all-nighters, but not for staying out all night with friends. “Nothing more important than a good friend,” he’d say wistfully, and then he’d tell you about the trouble he used to get into as a boy. He’d order the panna cotta topped with strawberries—one for him to savor, one sent back to the kitchen with specific instructions to keep it in the freezer until the end of your shift.
He’d leave a frankly ridiculous tip. “The world is cold,” he’d say, squeezing your hand. “You have to stay warm.”
It’s a full house tonight. It’s only a matter of time before someone else takes that table. It’s not properly reserved, anyway. Mr. Brunetti has been coming to Moonstruck since it opened. He doesn’t have to call. Someone will pencil him in. You keep looking at the door, hoping, waiting and worrying. He should be here. He always is, eight o’clock sharp every Wednesday. Always alone. The couple by the windows wants calamari and burrata caprese. You glance at Moonstruck’s arched entryway to and from the kitchen. Your gaze is drawn to it while you pour wine and crack pepper into trays of olive oil.
“You look like a puppy waiting for someone to come home,” one of your coworkers teases, but they’re looking, too. The maitre d’ is pacing at the front and checking his watch. You want to ask if anyone’s tried calling him but the party of four by the balcony doors is looking around impatiently with their menus set aside. You smile and jot down soups, salads and roasted branzino, but you’re thinking about how Mr. Brunetti always takes that last bite of panna cotta the slowest. He sets down his spoon, wipes his mouth on a napkin and gazes out at the city with such sad, pensive eyes. It’s strange how much you can come to worry about someone you only see once a week.
It happens eventually. Every booth, table and spot at the bar is occupied except for one, and someone who isn’t Mr. Brunetti walks in. Someone else offers to seat him but you feel like it has to be you. That’s your table this time of night, always. You grab a menu and silverware. You plaster on a smile. You’re thinking about the sweet smell of vanilla and strawberry coulis; the warmth in the hands of a relative stranger. “Right this way, sir,” you start to say, but your tongue stumbles over the words.
You’ve heard all the tired phrases people use to describe love at first sight; the hot rush and sweaty palms, the meadow’s worth of butterflies whipping up hurricanes in the stomach, the gymnastic feats of hearts that skip and race and leap. This is all true, it turns out, if you’re looking at the right person.
You are not prepared for just how brain-breakingly attractive the guy at the door is. You see a lot of people in a night and they’re all dressed to the nines, red carpet-ready in tailored suits and glitzy gowns, hair coiffed to perfection, and he’s making them look bad. You can’t figure out how, exactly. Maybe it’s not any single thing about him but the way every piece adds up to a perfect picture: the black tailcoat, the high-collared button-up and bowtie underneath, the crisp white gloves on graceful hands with long, pianist fingers. Platinum blond hair with the volume and shine of a shampoo model spills down his shoulders. His eyes are a striking, light shade of citrine with odd, oval pupils. Diamond-shaped, almost, with the points rounded off. He glances around Moonstruck with a quiet sort of amusement. The moment your eyes meet, he smiles, his pupils dilate into a rounder shape, and you have to remember how to breathe.
You try again. “Right this way, sir.” You sound nervous. He covers a cough that sounds suspiciously like a laugh with his hand and your face feels like it’s a million degrees. It feels like a hush falls over the restaurant as you lead him to his table. He gets a lot of looks, heated and blatantly interested. One of the other waiters stares at you as she passes by and you can only stare back with disbelieving, wide eyes because yes, you are seeing this, yes, he looks like the ghost of a Victorian butler, and yes, he’s gorgeous in a way that’s making you so uncomfortably aware of yourself that you’re on the verge of tripping over your own feet.
You smile awkwardly. You fumble with the menu when you slide it in front of him. You try to tell him about the seafood risotto but every time his eyes flick up to meet yours, you forget what you were talking about. He glances at the newspaper curiously and you blurt out an apology, reaching over him to take it.
His hand settles gently on top of yours. The gloves are soft, ribbed with three white lines along the back. “No, that’s alright. Please leave it,” he says, his voice deep and soft and perfect. He smiles reassuringly. “I wouldn’t mind having something to read. Did someone leave it behind?”
He’s not even touching you directly. It’s just your hand. Why do you feel like you’re going to faint? “No, it’s my fault. I forgot to put it away. There’s usually someone who…” You clear your throat and brighten your waning smile. “Well, what can I get you to start with?”
He’s staring at you, watching your expression carefully. You swallow hard and try not to fidget beneath his scrutiny. “The carpaccio platter and a cabernet sauvignon, please,” he says.
Has he been here before? You’re sure you would’ve noticed him, but he didn’t even look at the menu. You don’t realize you’re still standing there, staring at his long lashes and elegant features—he’s hot, you’re thinking, holy shit he’s hot, how is he so hot—until he very gently taps your hand, chuckling quietly.
“I’llberightback,” you say, speedwalking away to check on your other tables.
They’re all talking about him in the kitchen. Your coworkers are speculating—model, musician or movie star? Some new up and comer, at the very least. Nobody recognizes him. You bring him a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and he watches you fill his glass attentively. It helps if you don’t look at him. You pour neatly, a quick flick of the wrist keeping any excess from dripping down the bottle. “Splendid, thank you,” he says, sounding impressed. “Excellent technique.”
You’re glad he noticed. You’re embarrassed that you care so much. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“You’ve worked here for some time, then.”
“Just a couple years,” you say. “I haven’t lived here for very long.”
“Ah. A student?” He chuckles at your startled expression and slow, cautious nod. “Peronelle School of Art and Design?” You nod again, eyes averted. “Why so sheepish?”
You smile weakly, shrugging. “Well, you know. It’s art school.”
“What a wretched world this is, to make you believe that’s something to be embarrassed about.” He says it with such anger that it startles you, but his tranquil expression never changes. “Well, I think it’s wonderful. I once attended a conservatory myself, many years ago. A performing arts school.”
“Really?” you say, intrigued.
He pauses, looking at you more intently. “There it is,” he marvels. “You have such a lovely smile when it’s genuine.” He saves you the trouble of clumsily finding an excuse to exit the conversation by asking for filet mignon with sauteed vegetables. When you ask how he wants it, he smiles sweetly and says, “Raw.”
“Pardon?” you ask.
“I said I would like it rare.” You look at him and he looks back at you with his beautiful eyes, patient and beaming as though daring you to insist that he absolutely didn’t say that a second ago. You convince yourself that you’re just exhausted and frazzled, retreating to the kitchen.
“Maybe he’s a fashion designer?” one of your coworkers muses. “He looks like one of those types, doesn’t he?”
His carpaccio is ready, freshly drizzled with aioli and topped with garnish. You march it back to him, quietly relieved that he’s preoccupied reading the paper, although he sets it down to make unsettlingly intense eye contact. “This looks wonderful, thank you,” he says. You tell him to enjoy and you’re about to leave, but the page he was reading catches your eye. That’s Mr. Brunetti in his favorite paisley tie, thin-rimmed glasses balanced on his nose. He’s seated in his office, pen in hand, rows of leaning, haphazardly stacked books crammed into the shelves behind him, grinning at the camera.
“Local philanthropist, entrepreneur Edgar Brunetti dead at 75,” says the headline. You read it twice. A third time before the words fully register. It was a fall, the article says. You look at the picture; his smile. They found him at the bottom of the stairs in his own home, unresponsive. You think about the last time you saw him. The laughter, and the pat on the shoulder, and the story about a family dog that somehow climbed a tree and was too scared to come back down so he climbed up to get it. The wordless gaze out the window and the other chair he sometimes glanced at where nobody ever sat, and how the last bite of panna cotta always seemed to make him sad. He is survived by one son and two grandchildren.
“Are you alright?” The man sitting at Mr. Brunetti’s table speaks softly. You dab at your face with your sleeve.
“I’ll see how your steak is coming along,” you try to tell him, choked up and warbling. He catches your hand before you can leave.
“You hadn’t heard?” he asks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
You nod. It’s hard to keep it together, especially with the way he’s stroking your hand, rubbing little circles into your skin like he’s inviting you to fall apart. “He used to eat here,” you say. “Every week. He always got the same thing. He’d sit right here and we’d talk a little. I always looked forward to it.”
“I know. He told me.” He tugs gently at your hand, pulling you closer. You’d be more embarrassed about nearly falling into his lap if you weren’t so busy getting lost in his eyes and that tender, sympathetic expression, that warm smile. “We were business partners and, towards the end, rather good friends. He was always in such a rush to leave the office on Wednesdays. This was the highlight of his week. Pesto, panna cotta, and you.”
You stifle a sniffle with your hand. “I’m glad,” you say hoarsely.
He retrieves a handkerchief from his pocket, soft white silk with a gray symbol printed in the corner. You’re not sure what it is. Some kind of crest, maybe, a complex pattern of curves, angles, and squiggling lines crisscrossing inside two concentric circles. “Come now. No more tears,” he says.
“Oh, no, that’s okay—” He ignores your protests, reaching up to wipe your face with the cloth. He’s really good at this, you think. He’s quick and gentle, seemingly mindful of your discomfort of being seen like this. “Sorry,” you mutter.
“For what?” he asks.
“Getting snot on your nice handkerchief.”
He chuckles. “That’s exactly what it’s for. I wouldn’t dare use something of lesser quality to care for you than I would want for myself.” He folds the handkerchief neatly into a square, concealing the section he wiped your face with inside. “There. Isn’t that better?” he asks, gloved fingers stroking your cheek. “Would you like to sit down for a moment? It doesn’t seem right for you to rush off to work again so soon.”
“I have to, unfortunately, “you tell. “But thank you. I really do feel better. I’m glad Mr. Brunetti had a friend like you.”
“Please. Just for a moment,” he insists. “There’s something you should know—”
“Hey, uh.” One of your coworkers clears her throat, visibly reluctant to interrupt. You back up quickly, putting some distance between you and the handsome stranger. “Sorry, but some guy just came in looking for you. He asked for you by name.”
“Me?” you ask, confused. You give the man at the table one last appreciative nod.
For the first time tonight, he’s not smiling anymore. His expression is downright frigid. You quickly look away.
There’s a man standing just inside the front doors, a damp umbrella tucked under one arm, suit jacket thrown over his shoulder. He’s dressed nicely but not nearly nice enough for Moonstruck, office casual with a maroon shirt and tan khakis. He’s peering into the restaurant, clearly looking for something. You can’t shake the feeling that you’ve seen him before, a trace of familiarity in all of his features, but you can’t quite place him. “Can I help you?” you ask. He gives you a quick, unimpressed up-and-down glance. His frown deepens, irritation boiling into rage. He says your name—your full name in a questioning tone. “Do I know you?”
He shifts the jacket on his shoulder, raises his hand, and suddenly you’re staring directly into the empty black eye of a gun barrel.
It all happens too fast. You’re dimly aware of a commotion around you. Noise. Movement. Panic. The maitre d’ shouting. Waiters scrambling. Several tables near the entrance empty, customers ducking and running. Your gaze passes from the gun to the face behind it, the strangely familiar eyes and nose, the square jaw. Neither a smile nor a frown, just cold focus and a distant gaze like he’s looking through you. Like you’re not even there. His finger curls on the trigger and you’re thinking about Mr. Brunetti.
He fires. You hear it, sharp like a thundercrack. Time starts to move again and everything is chaos, stampeding footsteps and overturned chairs. You’re staring at the elegant, curving seams and silver buttons on the back of a tailcoat, the tailored fit over the flare of strong shoulders, the spill of platinum hair. You take a step back and your legs give out under you, heart racing and head spinning.
“Enrico,” you hear the handsome stranger say. His voice is a low, menacing rumble. “Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you down.”
There’s a reply—an attempt at one, anyway. All you can hear is strangled gurgling and a horrible wet, churning sound like the stirring squelch of marinara and spaghetti noodles.
“I have had the misfortune of meeting some of the most wretched, vile humans to walk this earth. You do not count among them, but you were profoundly irritating and I must confess, this is personal. You made it so. I am glad to be rid of you and I only wish I’d been permitted to do this sooner.”
Something splashes on the floor. Your breath hitches. That’s blood, isn’t it? That’s definitely blood, all over your handsome stranger’s shoes and pants and the wood floor. The heady iron stink of it is thick in the air. Another red gush spills something more solid that lands with a sickening splat. Slick, veiny things twitch and pulsate. A wave of nausea churns your stomach. Somebody’s insides are glistening in a bloody puddle, ropes of intestine and mangled bits of other things in the pasty pink shades of uncooked meat.
You stare at the grisly detritus, wide-eyed, uncomprehending. This can’t be real. You hear choking, retching, the unpleasant sticky sounds of someone trying to wheeze through a throatful of phlegm. More blood dribbles on the floor and more chunks of human mincemeat follow it down.
Somebody whimpers. It must be you, because the bristling form in front of you suddenly tenses. You see the gunman lurch—or what’s left of him, ragged and red all over, missing the whole front of his neck so you can see the way all the soft tissues in his neck flutter and writhe around a pale yellow stripe of spine, a gaping wound for a stomach. He hits the ground hard. Blood seeps out of him from every angle.
“I’m so sorry. I was in such a rush I forgot you were standing right there.” It’s him again. The handsome stranger, Mr. Brunetti’s friend. There’s no way he could’ve gotten across the restaurant so fast, but here he is kneeling in front of you, framing your face in his bare, bloodsoaked hands. Each finger ends in a long, bone white claw and he’s mindful of them when he strokes your cheek, careful not to scratch you. “Are you alright? That must’ve been frightening,” he says softly. Your eyes dart around his face, your breath quickening at each new, incomprehensible thing you see.
His hair is spotted like a leopard’s fur. Black curls and circles pepper stark white hair. You see the same pattern on the furred, curved ears on top of his head, black along the edge with tufts of lighter fur inside. His eyes are the same startling amber shade but larger now with a distinctly feline shape, the sclera pitch black. You have so many questions you don’t even know where to start.
“Oh dear. Let’s get you into a chair, at least.” You don’t know what else to do, so you listen to him. You’re coaxed to your feet, your weight supported against his shoulder. He helps you wobble over to one of the vacated tables, pulling it out for you and easing you down with soft words of praise. He drops to one knee next to you and the handkerchief appears in his hand, miraculously clean. He wipes off the blood he left on your face.
“What’s happening?” you feel yourself saying. Maybe this is a nightmare. Maybe you really did get shot in the head.
“This isn’t quite how I imagined this conversation going,” he says wryly. “I’m afraid I must be brief. Someone has probably called the Department of Infernal Affairs by now. You needn’t worry, I’m perfectly within my rights to avenge the murder of my previous contractee, but they may seek to have me temporarily detained. I am an incubus, previously in the service of Edgar Brunetti. As per the instructions listed in his will and the associated, mutually agreed upon stipulations and amendments, Edgar Brunetti’s son, Enrico Brunetti, shall receive nothing. Instead, you shall inherit the remaining five years of his contract. This inheritance is a gift. You owe no payment for my services until five years have elapsed, at which point you may be granted severance or negotiate payment for an extension. Do you understand?”
You think you’re going to be sick.
He chuckles and leans in, pressing his lips to your cheek. Like the faintest brush of his hand on yours, the short, chaste kiss makes you shiver. “Don’t worry. This will all make sense in time. I think you’ll start to enjoy it.” He places one his hands on his chest, over his heart, and bows his head. “Seleukos,” he purrs, peering up at you with a sly, hungry smile. “At your service.”
also, same morgan-crazed anon here… what would happen if reader willingly sought morgan, or any of the aspects out? whether for comfort etc is up in the air but how would they react to being called out for by the reader’s own volition??
im holding back on detail here because you’ll probably get to see this in the series, but generally speaking:
->morgan: absolutely ecstatic and not subtle about it. it doesn’t matter if the visit is purely pragmatic or you just need something, he acts like you just proposed to him. he sits way too close, is way too touchy, and he’s nodding and smiling so much you’re not sure he’s even listening. will do just about anything you ask, within reason and the boundaries of the contract.
->eirian: surprised and then immediately trying to get into your pants. he tries to play it cool, but he’s shocked to see you outside of a scheduled feeding. if it’s not an emergency (and honestly, sometimes even if it is) he’s going to try and seduce you. he’s not even hungry, he’s just excited and wants to make the most of his good fortune.
->zivian: slightly smug, like he knew you’d show up. he can play nice, he won’t rub it in your face unless you get snippy with him. zivian is the easiest aspect to ask for a favor without it turning into a huge production. it’s honestly hard to tell he feels any differently about it than normal, although you might notice he’s unusually attentive (offers a jacket if it’s cold, asks several times if you’ve eaten already, etc).
if you sleep, you'll dream. if you dream, you'll see him. if you see him, you will never be free.
->original work. explicit; contains non-con, graphic descriptions of violence, hard vore, terato, non-human genitalia, mind-altering magic.
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You can feel him all the time now. Not just when you close your eyes.
But it’s fine. That’s normal. It’s just residual magic. You get the same sticky cobweb feeling when you work with infernal pigments or walk by a Fundamentals of Magical Writing class in the first few weeks when people are still knocking their Stygian ink bottles over. That’s just how it works. If you dunk your head in a pool, you’ll drip for a while. Nothing weird or worrying about it. It’ll go away on its own.
You stay out late a lot these days. Not for any real reason, honestly, you’re just busy. And why hole up in your dark, quiet, isolated apartment when you could hit the town instead? There’s no time like the present to start enjoying clubs, concerts and all the dazzling nightlife Obelos has to offer. Your final exhibition is coming up and you’ve been working hard on getting those pieces ready, of course, but you need a break. Anyone would. It’s fine that you’re at the bar until it closes. It’s fine.
“You look tired,” people have started to say.
Well, obviously. It’s grad school! Everyone’s tired. Someone pass the tube of crepuscular blue. You stand up straighter in front of your easel. If you focus, your hand will stop shaking. You yawn and it spreads like a virus. See? you say. How are those gallery applications coming along?
The goetia double-major brags that they’re going great, actually, thank you so much for asking. “I’m in contact with the director of Gallery Decadentia,” she says casually, savoring the jealous glares and chorus of seething “Woooow, congratulaaaaations.” She’s become almost tolerable since securing a Benefactor-Patron. A little less smugness and a lot less tainting the communal workshop paints with subtle poison and then acting shocked and heartbroken when a classmate is out for a week with the worst flu of their life.
“Have any tips for snagging a Patron?” somebody asks.
She shrugs. “Study goetia. Honestly, I don’t know how else people do it nowadays. You’re out of luck unless you get into one of those really big expos. It’s that or somnarium painting.”
“Didn’t you do that for a while?”
The room gets quiet and you glance up from the stormy swirls forming on your canvas. Oh. They’re asking you. And now they’re staring, because your eyes are bloodshot and you keep tapping one of your hands against your thigh in an irregular rhythm to keep yourself alert and awake. You shrug. “For a little bit, yeah. It was good practice, I guess.”
You sound dismissive and they’re all nodding. “It’s so kitsch. I don’t get it.”
“Ugh, I had to do a bunch in Dream Augury a couple years ago. Huge waste of time.”
“I think they’re great,” someone says, terse. “It depends how you do it. Some of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance were somnarium paintings.”
“That’s completely different.”
“Yeah, the term actually meant something back then. You didn’t just splash some watercolor on the closest surface first thing in the morning and say it came to you in a dream.”
“Expos are better anyway,” the double-major says. “You don’t want a mare for a patron.”
“Really? Why?”
She raises a brow. “What happened to all those great somnarium painters of the Renaissance?”
“They didn’t all go missing, though.”
“Sure,” she scoffs. “A few of them died in their sleep.” She watches you carefully for a while but you don’t care. You’re focused on your work. You have nothing to hide. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
You go out for a while. Enjoy the noise and lights, the lively ambience. You grab coffee. You window shop. You take the scenic route home. It’s well past midnight and you’re nodding while trying to find your keys in your pocket. You feel him. He’s there when your eyelids flutter. You jolt upright and shove your keys in the lock and it’s fine, all fine. You lock the door behind you. It’s dark. The lights don’t work right. You keep changing out the bulbs and they keep dying to a barely-there glow, weaker than little flickering candles.
Paper crumples under your shoe. That happens a lot. Kind of unavoidable when you’ve got sketches all over the floor and tables and chairs and stuffed in the drawers and pasted on the walls. Some are quick, frantic pencil scribbles, some ink, some hazy with watercolor, some sharp and acrylic. They’re of everything. Shapes. People. Plants. Animals. Corpses. Hungry castles. Seashell staircases and stained glass forests. And deer—lots of deer. Herds of deer, fractal deer, deer metamorphosis, deer saints. Close-ups of long lashes and bar pupils. Antlers that grasp.
You set an alarm for one hour from now. There are twelve more after that just in case. You might not even sleep. You might just lay down and rest your eyes for a second and—
You blink and there’s a house. A big one. A small one. It keeps changing. Cabin, cottage, courtyard full of butterflies. There’s a garden arch covered in clinging green tendrils and flowers that glow like the moon. Well, that’s alright, you tell yourself. It happens. Maybe you were just a little more tired than you thought. You set the alarms. You’ll be alright.
You step through the arch and into a rustic foyer; stone floor, wooden walls. Candles flicker. The hallway forks in three directions, each dark path lit only by a breadcrumb trail of flickering candles. You start walking. It doesn’t matter where. Open doorways line the hall, each room beckoning your attention with the beauty of full-bloom gardens, tranquil beaches and palatial bedchambers. Some are already occupied. The people inside sigh, and weep, and scream.
Here you are again, in the somnarium.
“Are you lost, sweetie?”
Someone peeks out of a room up ahead. A man. A mare, probably. He’s wearing a guise but there’s an unnatural, subtle luminescence around him, a soft haloing glow as though he’s standing in front of a light. He leans in the open doorway, an arm bent against the frame, head cocked and smile alluring. Light, silky robes hang from his body like a draped toga, the fabric translucent so you can see the subtle outline of his figure beneath.
“I’m not lost,” you insist. “I’m just…”
“Why don’t you come here? There’s always room for one more.” You see movement behind him. Squirming. Writhing. Bodies entangled, arched backs and thrusting hips; a shared dream of pleasure. Three humans kiss and caress one another. The glint of eyes in the dark tells you another mare is watching. The one at the door tilts your chin, returning your attention to his face. “Mm. What a sweet, sweet scent. But you’re a little too lucid for my tastes.” He sighs, patting your cheek. “Run along now. I’m sure someone will be very happy to see you.”
You keep walking. The hall never seems to end, splitting into even more maze-like paths. There are spiral staircases and cellar doors, windows to other worlds. You keep moving because that’s better than standing still. You looked it up. Mares prefer ambush to pursuit, but that doesn’t mean they won’t go on the hunt if they want something badly enough.
You see a nightmare of being lost in one room you pass. A man stumbles down a winding mountain path in hiking gear, shivering in the frigid wind. You just barely glimpse the mare—an elongated silhouette slinking through the trees. Across the hall, a woman dreams of a labyrinthine college campus and a classroom she can’t find and a mare follows closely behind her, nipping at her heels, hissing that she’s going to fail this class.
Further on, a shared nightmare of being chased has ended and the mares feast on their quarry. Your stomach churns at the sight and sound of gushing blood and cracking bone, the squelch of disembowelment. The dreamers struggle but they’ve already lost. They are always weaker than the hunters in their dreams, always too slow to outrun them. Some are shocked awake immediately, vanishing from the somnarium and leaving pouting mares behind.
But some linger, screaming for help and for mercy that’s never coming beneath their vicious attention. The mares wrench limbs from their sockets. They rip chunks of flesh from chests and thighs and lick the blood from their clawed fingers. They reach into the ragged, gaping wounds they make and shudder in delight at the fear their prey feels, the helplessness, the despair. Frenzied, their guises flicker and slip, revealing the wispy, protean strangeness beneath. They are ungulates—goats but not, caribou but wrong, spider-horses and centipede-deer. They move in ways they shouldn’t. Their bodies can’t decide how many legs to have and their faces are a constant shift of beauty and incomprehensible horror.
You see someone try to crawl away, shrieking in mindless terror when a mare pounces on their back. It stabs straight through their shoulder, staking them to the ground with a spear-like hoof. It rips at their clothes with its teeth and stomps their legs when they try to wriggle free, pummeling flesh and shattering bone. More legs—thin and spindly, sometimes hands, sometimes claws and pincers—emerge from its body to shove their head into the dirt and raise their hips. It makes itself a long, flat-headed cock already hard and drooling precum, grinding the grotesquely large organ against its prey’s backside.
“Hello, pet.”
You freeze when a hand seizes your shoulder and a warm, firm body presses against your back. Human, but only to the torso. You didn’t hear his hooves but you feel them now, knocking against your ankles. “Aelius,” you stammer. “I—”
“Do not speak.” He moves around you, his hand sliding from shoulder to the other as he circles around to stand between you and the doorway, his fingers hooking beneath your chin. He is calm and collected, unchanging in contrast to the constantly shifting nightmares gorging themselves behind him. You see a large deer-centaur, the lower body piebald with spots and patches of brown and white. Long white hair spills over one shoulder and down his back, the enormous antlers crowning his head tangled with climbing vines and pale blue flowers. Red eyes flick up and down, scrutinizing you.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Sounds of violence and lust—blood, hunger and ecstatic moans—emanate from the room behind him. When you start to squirm, he licks his lips.
“You have been avoiding me,” he says, low and dangerous. You start to insist that you weren’t, you’d never, you know better, and he squeezes your jaw. “Do. Not. Speak,” he hisses. “And do not ever lie to me again. Such impudence.” He drags you closer, his grip on your face forcing you onto your toes. He smirks in satisfaction at the small whimper you let out. “But that is part of your charm. Come.”
He lets go of you and steps over the threshold, his form rippling as he enters the room. He stops to look back over his shoulder, his cold gaze warning you that his patience is short tonight. You follow reluctantly, entering the nightmare of devouring. He walks slowly and through the center of the carnage, forcing you to walk through unwound ropes of intestine and splayed, partially skeletonized limbs. You know where Aelius is going. You see the rutting mare ahead, back legs spread as it thrusts wildly into the captive, impaled body in front of it. You don’t want to get any closer but he looks back sharply when you stop moving.
“Come here,” he growls. He’s appeased by your rush to obey but only slightly. He grabs your arm and drags you closer, forcing you to stand beside him. You’re right next to the other mare, so close that you could reach out and touch its flank. You can see the dreamer’s distend around its cock, abdomen bulging obscenely with every thrust. They shudder and moan weakly in pain, fingers tangled in the grass and dirt. Every time they start to sag and go limp, close to waking, the mare twists the dagger-like limb in their shoulder and makes them scream.
Aelius grabs you by the hair when you turn away, yanking until your scalp is burning and you let out a wounded noise.
“You may speak,” he says. “And you will tell me what drove you to such petty mischief. Do not look away.”
You inhale shakily. You do what he asks, even though the sights and sounds of the mare’s relentless thrusts make your stomach turn. “I…I want you to let me go.”
He chuckles, his grip loosening. He massages your scalp instead as a reward for your obedience. “Let you go?” he purrs. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
You swallow nervously. Is he going to try and deny it? Bored of the dreamer’s quiet resignation, the mare bends its front legs, the front of its body resting heavily on their back. Its thrusts slow to harder, deeper pounding, long pauses between movements leaving it fully hilted in the dreamer’s trembling body. You hear their breath turning to strained wheezes.
“I don’t dream about anything else anymore,” you say. “I always come here.”
“Such things aren’t unheard of. Many humans prefer my somnarium to aimless wandering, or the predations of other demons.”
He’s going to make you say it. Why? Because it scares you? Because you know, deep down, what’s been happening all along but didn’t want to believe it? You take a deep breath. “I can feel you. Even when I’m awake. I can feel your magic on me.”
The mare looks at you and your breath hitches. Its face is mostly human but there are flickers of other things, a fogginess to its features. It looks at you and in that moment it knows everything you want most and everything you’re afraid of. Its eyes narrow. It licks its lips. It keeps looking at you as it spills inside the dreamer, heavy balls pressed against their ass. A slow dribble of cum leaks from their abused entrance, dark blue and glittering like the night sky.
“Oh? Is that so?” Aelius asks, stroking your arm. “And why might that be?”
“Because…”
The mare pauses for a moment. It’s not resting. It doesn’t need to because it’s not tired. It waits for the human to go completely limp, to exhale finally, to close their eyes and try desperately to will themselves awake. That’s when it starts to pull, dragging itself inch by inch out of their body, all the way to the tip and letting a gush of thick, frothing cum gush down their thighs. Then it slams back in, savoring their hoarse, rasping scream, and starts to fuck them again.
“Because you’re Entrancing me,” you whisper.
You looked it up. It’s a slow, subtle thing, easy to miss until you’re in the throes of it. First, you’re tired. You want to sleep more often. Then sleep always brings you to the same somnarium, and your dreams always push you into the arms of the same mare. Then you feel it—intrusions in your mind. Whispers and suggestions, gentle nudges. Thoughts that feel like yours but aren’t. It takes a long time for a mare to get so far in your head that it starts to leak into your waking life, but once Entrancement has set in, it can take months or even years to fully break.
The more you see him and the more he feeds, the worse it’ll be. You already respond to his touch, unable to stop yourself from leaning into his hand stroking your cheek.
“The modern age is so vexing at times,” Aelius muses. “Once, you would have needed to consult an oracle or an experienced infernal scholar to even hear that word and understand what it entailed. It matters not. You are already mine. And is that not what you asked of me?”
You wanted security. You wanted to stop worrying about your bills and tuition and the staggering cost of infernal pigments. You wanted to know you would be alright in the end, no matter what happened. “I asked if you would be my Patron,” you say.
He smiles and leans in, bending down to be closer to eye level with your thumb caught between his fingers. “And I said I would,” he murmurs. “Gladly I would, to ensure your brush is ever wet with the finest paints, so long as you paint for me. Of course I Entranced you. You belong to me.”
You think he’s going to kiss you. You hold your breath, waiting for it. Hoping, despite everything. It frightens you to want him this much. But instead he chuckles and pulls away, straightening to his full height.
“Now, this is the scene you will paint for me when you wake.” He gestures to the smirking mare who arches seductively as though posing for you, its hips still snapping against its captive prey. “Look carefully,” Aelius says, grasping your shoulders. He stands right behind you, pressing his toned chest against your back. “Pay close attention. The light. The color. The movement. You will be rewarded for your attention to detail. Perhaps, someday…” He chuckles, wrapping his arms around you. “Someday, I will ask you for a self-portrait in the same style.”
Loud, shrill noise makes you gasp and bolt upright. You wake up in bed, in the dark. You grope for your phone on the bedside table, stomach sinking when you see you slept through four of your alarms. You can feel him, even now. You can feel the weight of his gaze and the ghostly caress of his hands. You don’t know what you’re going to do. Is there someone you can tell? Someone who can help you? You know someone in the Goetia Studies Department. Maybe she—
Your heart skips a beat. You sit up slowly, pulling your leg back from the hard surface it just bumped into. There, at the foot of your bed, is a canvas and a collection of brand new infernal paint.
