Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,6

back, heart racing. The demon throws the panthers and wolf off him with a roar of anger. Yet again they go flying through the air; when they land, my heart feels like it's breaking at the sound of their cries of pain. Beaten and battered as their shifter bodies are, all three of them begin to shift back into their human forms, looking weak and half-dead, barely capable of fighting anymore. But despite that they rise to their feet again, staring at Ezriel as he grabs my wounded hand and yanks it towards the Hell gate.

"Open it," he commands, and I feel my magic twist and try to control me. "Open the door to Hell, or so help me, I'll gut you, eat your entrails, and choke you you with your own severed feet."

Creative, but I'm not afraid.

Instead, as I face the Hell gate, I feel a moment of clarity.

What I'm planning might actually still be possible—even though my plans have suddenly changed.

I was going to throw Ezriel through the gate to Hell and shut it behind him.

As he forces my hand against the opening rune, though, I realize I won't be able to. He's connected to me by my feral magic whether I want him to be or not. There's no changing that, not anymore. So if I send him to Hell, I have to go with.

I spare a moment to look back at my mother's spirit. She's gotten to her feet again. She's just as beautiful as I remember. Her eyes are sad and desperate though, and I know she stayed here to be with me.

It's time for her to move on.

Maybe if I do this, she'll finally be able to.

And maybe my familiars, who are already forcing their bodies to tense again, prepared to fight on my behalf, will survive if I'm gone.

Whatever is down in Hell can't be worse than what my father did to me and my sister. That day still haunts my nightmares. It makes the world around me feel a little less alive. Hell can't be much worse than that.

I willingly say the strange, ancient words that will open the Hell gate.

"Elahayra pià moralis ci bhet."

Ezriel crows in delight.

His hand is tight on my wrist.

As the gate begins to creak open, untold horrors surging on the other side, slathering maws and dripping fangs, I turn my fingers around.

I grab the demon's hand.

Feel for the connection that ties us.

And tighten is so tight that he can't get away.

"No!" He rages, fights, tries to get his hand out of my grip. "You stupid fucking bitch, you don't know what's on the other side of that gate."

"I do," I tell him simply, "and I'm going to make sure you never get back out again."

As soon as it widens enough I slip through the open crack of the door, pulling him behind me with a yank of my shoulder. Not stopping to look at what's on the other side—it's Hell, so it can't be good—I twist around, face the other end of the door, dip my free fingers into the blood dripping from my wounded palm, and quickly paint a rune on the back of the door.

Enjoin what was once separated.

That's what the rune Auerbach gave me means. I don't know why or how, but it takes these two doors and pushes them together. Somehow that'll make it possible for the door to be closed—and it'll prevent it from opening any further. As soon as the rune is locked into place, the door ceases to open, stopping in its half-open state. I feel a shiver in the wood, and glance through the opening to see wards on the other side.

Good. Auerbach has set down his spells. The campus will be protected. Nothing big enough to tear it apart will get through the door now—and that includes Ezriel.

Whose fingers are digging into the cut on my palm so hard that I wince, letting go of the connection, and pull us apart. He snarls at me; I back up, suddenly afraid, wondering what I've done.

At least I only sacrificed myself.

No one else got hurt.

As the thought goes through me, though, I feel something rise up inside me. An undeniable connection. One I created when I was a frightened, newborn phoenix, unable to control my powers. One that irrevocably connected my soul to three others.

Blue energy pours out of my hands. It turns my eyes blue; I can tell because the part of Hell we're in—a dark part of Hell,