Fall asleep for five minutes, give the boy hours of entertainment.
“Logan! Oh, Logan! You’re so sexy!” He mimicked my imaginary sleep-talk in a high-pitched fake girl voice, throwing his head back and shaking it from side to side as if he were in the throes of passion.
“Is this joke ever going to get old?” I sighed, patting him in the center of his chest before pushing him away, and he pulled me back against his body, lowering his head to nuzzle my neck. Good thing we were out of sight of the librarian—since Friday night, Logan had gotten a lot more affectionate, his earlier aversion to PDA having evaporated. He’d admitted that he felt too guilty about keeping his true nature a secret—“You didn’t know what you were kissing. I felt like I was stealing!”—but now that everything was out in the open, he wasn’t shy about grabbing kisses before class. Or after class. And once, during class, when the teacher’s back was turned.
Yep, we were one of those annoying, so-in-love-it-makes-others-want-to-vomit couples, and I loved every nausea-inducing minute of it. He even held my hand in front of my parents—making my mom smile sentimentally, and my dad, of course, turn a previously unseen shade of purple. I think it was called puce.
“So listen,” Logan began, resting his hands on my hips as I leaned against the bookshelf behind me. “I’ll walk you home, but I won’t be able to hang out after school. Something’s going on—Rego’s asked me to stay for a meeting. I think it’s important that I be there.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. When Logan first told Rego he would quit after killing Aiden, Rego’s reaction was volcanic. He accused Logan of deserting the cause. He questioned his loyalty. And although Logan didn’t delve into details, opting to skim over the particulars of Rego’s tirade—probably because it had to do with me—Logan did tell me that Rego made it a point to bring up his father.
“Going off on his own didn’t end so well for Maxim Rex,” he’d reminded Logan, insisting on using his dad’s “warlock” name instead of the name Logan knew he’d preferred, Max. “He was a far superior soldier than you are. What makes you think you’ll fare any better?”
That, particularly, was a low blow. It had backfired on Rego—and merely confirmed Logan’s decision.
But in the past few days, Rego and Logan had worked out an arrangement. Logan would become something of a mercenary for the warlocks—an assassin for hire—when the warlocks were faced with a particularly difficult demon. And Logan would train a replacement, a young warlock named Tristan who was doing work for Rego in the Dark City.
In the meantime, Logan planned on renting an apartment by hypnotizing the landlord—I’d had to talk him down from a penthouse, since people might notice the teenager with no income living like a mogul—but Logan argued that he wanted to get a job and save for college, so he had to ration out his limited funds somehow.
Rego financed his war through alchemy; he could turn metal into gold. That’s what was hidden behind the curtain in his living room—a secret lab that gave him an endless source of income in the human world. It would be no skin off that straight, permanently-in-the-air nose to turn a friggin’ toaster to gold and hand it to Logan. “Here you go, buddy. Thanks for the years of work. This should pay for college, an apartment, and maybe buy you a new baseball cap.”
But no. Rego just had to keep ties to Logan, and it alarmed me to no end. But Logan was so entranced by his plan for college and a normal life that I kept my mouth shut.
“Do you have any idea what the meeting could be about?” I asked, and Logan’s hands tightened on my hips.
“It has to be about you. Even if I hadn’t planned to leave after this mission, keeping you safe is still the most important thing right now.”
Logan shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine.
“But...I’m afraid they want to use you.”
“But what can I do, other than be used to open a portal?”
“Cerus seems to know the Queen’s itinerary. If he finds out where the Queen is going to be at a certain time, you can be used to open a portal on the corresponding point this side. She’d be ripe for assassination,” he explained, and I shuddered at the memory of the last portal I opened. I’d been so tired...I could feel my life fading away. But if I did this one last thing—one last thing for Logan—maybe he’d finally be free of it all.
“Maybe I should let them,” I suggested, and Logan stepped back, his face twisted in horror as he clenched his fists.
“I’m just saying, then it would finally be over,” I reasoned, but Logan glared at me.
“Do you honestly think it would ever end there?” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Someone will eventually kill the person who replaces her. And then they’ll get assassinated by someone else. And so on. It will never end.”
He opened his eyes, and they were bleak, empty. “You’d be used, and used, and used, until you were nothing.”
“Okay. So let’s not do that, then,” I said hastily, and he let out a weary chuckle before pulling me back into his arms.
“Yeah, let’s not,” he agreed, kissing the top of my head before drawing back.
“Come on, it’s time for lunch.” Logan took my hand and led the way to our usual table in the back. “I know the perfect corner that’s a great spot for sneaking sandwiches and dealing with annoying dead friends.”
But Dottie and Travis were nowhere to be found at lunch. It wasn’t entirely surprising: while Dottie had gotten over Logan’s demonic side pretty quickly, Travis seemed to be holding a grudge, suspiciously watching Logan when he thought no one was looking.
“They’re probably off somewhere, enjoying their privacy. Lucky,” Logan muttered under his breath, glancing up at the security camera in the corner—one of several dozen now scattered throughout the school. After the fire in the detention classroom, reported vandalism in the music room—and, of course, full-on destruction of the auditorium—the school had hastily installed security cameras throughout the building, citing evidence of gang activity. Shani Robinson’s impassioned editorial in the Observer called it a “forced police state punishing the many for the evil actions of a few.”
If only she knew just how evil.
“Some privacy would be nice,” I agreed, my glance landing on the table next to us, where Princess Pepper and her ladies-in-hating congregated. Of course, Pepper’s eyes kept shooting my way—but I realized she didn’t have her usual “Paige Sucks” expression on her face. She looked stressed out and anxious. And that’s when I realized that her perfectly coiffed hair was messy and uncared for, her eyes ringed with shadows. She was fidgeting, shifting in her seat as she twisted the massive gold ring on her hand.
“Wow, Pepper’s looking kind of...rough,” I commented, and Logan gave her a passing glance before waving his hand in a dismissive way.
“Looks the same to me. Wake me when she looks like the person who hasn’t been a total bitch to you.”
I snorted at his comment, and Logan gave me a beatific smile before curling his lip in disgust in her direction.
“She’s probably got the flu. I’m sure she’ll use her last bit of energy to injure you somehow in gym before collapsing into a germy heap on the floor.”
Gym was my first class after lunch, but Pepper—who usually took every opportunity to spike the volleyball at my head or blast the hockey puck right into my knees—hung back when we ran laps around the gym today, missing a prime opportunity to trip me as I rounded a corner.