there early enough to beat traffic.”
True enough. The journey from our house in the Hollywood Hills to campus isn’t always predictable. I drag my hefty copy of The Divine Comedy onto my lap. “All right. I’ll get ready now and ride in with you. We can stop by to see Gramps after my last class. Today’s his birthday.”
She whips her stare up, concern suddenly sharpening her features. “Kara. Don’t call him that.”
I bristle inside but try not to show it. Holding on to affection for our grandfather has always been a delicate matter. And I’m only delicate for his sake. Being the only unfortunate human in a family of black souls, he has enough working against him without me raising suspicions that he means more to me than he should.
“We’ll go see Gio,” I correct, putting added emphasis on the name we’ve been forced to call him. I’m chafing on the inside. Why does it have to be this way? It’s as if he’s just a stranger taking up space in the guesthouse of our family’s estate. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Mom is charging him rent.
Kell glances back down at her phone, an unpleasant scowl ruining her picture-perfect look. “Mom won’t like it. You should go in a few days.”
“I’m not going to walk in with a sheet cake and balloons. I just want to stop by and wish him a happy birthday. You know no one else will. And you can distract Mom. I’m sure she’s too focused on other things to even remember the day has any significance. It’s just another day all about her.”
She rolls her eyes with a soft sigh. “Fine. Just leave me out of it, okay?”
Her focus is glued to her phone for a couple more minutes. Kell and I might share a house and a fate, but we’re nothing alike. Just like human siblings, we’ve turned out differently. The problem is, I’m too different. Money and clothes and excess are supposed to satisfy me. No one understands why I regard it all as little more than convenience. I’d be happy with less, but a lifestyle supported by the ever-growing Valari fortune is the check I’m expected to cash in exchange for my obedience. Refusing it isn’t optional. There’s no other way.
I clutch the book to my chest and stand, forcing myself not to break the morning calm by sharing these frustrations with my darkly enlightened little sister. Her illumination on the path straight to hell is the crazy, if sad, irony of the day.
“Give me ten minutes,” I finally say. “Make it fifteen.”
No sense in denying that I’ll be paying a little extra attention to prepping for class today. I’m a demon, not a zombie.
Maximus hasn’t looked at me for the better part of an hour. Still, the professor holds every second of my attention. Especially now, as he reads the final stanzas of Canto III aloud, his voice as rich and intense as I’ve ever heard it. In fact, everything about him seems more intense this morning.
One might suspect he didn’t get enough sleep, or coffee, or that he’s simply having a shitty day. But the way he tore his gaze from mine as I walked into the lecture hall makes me wonder what’s really happening behind his invisible walls.
My conversation with Kell this morning—not to mention our impending visit to Gramps tonight—linger in my mind, but I can’t seem to focus on anything except the way Maximus furrows his brows as he reads, gesturing as he goes, like the words are a symphony his fingers need to conduct. Even from this distance, I can feel the passion vibrating from him, an almost imperceptible energy, a subtle but dangerous shift like the tectonic plates that rumble the ground beneath our feet at least a dozen times a day.
“And all pass eagerly, for here, Divine Justice transforms and spurs them so their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear.”
He continues, finishing the last lines with perfect cadence. Their meaning shoots a stinging arrow through the heart I know I have, even if its longings and purpose never seem to align the way they should.
An air of finality and expectation fills the silence once Maximus claps his copy of the book shut. Students fidget, no doubt anticipating questions they may not be equipped to answer. He paces wordlessly along the front row, whether deep in thought or committed to building the anticipation, I’m not sure. Finally he pauses and