Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,73

lower lip. "What if... what if giving him a soul again makes him human? Turns him back into the man Mom said he used to be?"

My heart hurts. "If that happens—and I don't think it will—I promise to bring him in alive, so we can figure out what to do next."

I hope that it doesn't happen, though.

I don't know if I can bear to look into the eyes of my mother's killer knowing I saved him but couldn't save her.

Dani has a lot to say about the Manslayer. "He was epically powerful. A necromancer as well as a soulless dude, with a Hannibal-Lecter-like desire to kill people. He'd even turned his detached spirit into some kind of poltergeist that obeyed his every command—hopefully you won't have that issue."

"I'm pretty good with ghosts," I reassure her. "They don't really bother me."

Other than the one that turned out to be a trickster demon leading me into the Spirit Realm to open a door to Hell and let chaos loose on the mortal world.

"Well, that's good. And your dad isn't a Grim, right?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Then he won't be able to do some of the things the Manslayer could, anyway. All you have to do to defeat him is put his soul back in his body, making him mortal again, and slit his throat." She demonstrates, the expression on her face one of relished violence. "Let me show you the rune again, just in case you forgot it. The thing means anchor or whatever. You have to burn it in fire."

The rune Dani has been teaching me was given to her by a dead spirit who, absurdly enough, was her half-brother through her nearly-immortal Grim father. She doesn't mention him much these days, but he's rotting in the Phoenix Academy prison island, aptly named Darkness Island. If for some reason putting the Heretic's soul back in his body goes sideways, he could wind up there as well.

Two shitty dads. Both dying in prison. Dani and I have more in common than you might think from the outside. Maybe that's part of what being a phoenix is, though—getting through an epic level of bullshit and trauma and surviving another day.

Dani at least has a sense of humor about everything she's been through. Her trip through Hell sounds like it was far worse than mine—there was no sex meadow in her part, it seems. But she's shaken it off as if it never happened, and dyed her hair a deep magenta color that makes it look like she just got back from Burning Man, not Hell itself.

We're standing outside in one of the open training fields, where practicing our flames won't endanger anyone—as long as we keep it to a minimum. Yohan wouldn't let Dani burn anything inside his training room like she wanted, since apparently last time she scorched the ceiling with the tips of her wings.

"So first you've got this big symbol in the middle that kind of looks like a crab with half its legs cut off. Then a few swirly bits—well, they're other symbols really. And it's enclosed in a diamond shape." I only half-watch her draw the symbol in the grass with her flames, my mind in other places, and Dani frowns at me. "You know, if you don't need this refresher, I don't have to bother."

"Sorry. My mind is just... on other things."

"Like killing your father?"

What a blunt way with words she has. "Basically, yes. Not that I think of him as my father. It's just... well, what happened to the Manslayer after you put his soul back in him?"

"Do you mean did he turn into a good person and cry about all the things he'd done? No." She snorts. "But he was soulless from a young age, apparently. I guess it would depend on how far gone your father is, and who he was before he was brought back from the dead."

"I don't even know for sure who brought him back," I confess to Dani. "Mom used to think it was witches from another coven, but if it was a Grim... I suppose maybe they believed he might be a rare phoenix type. That's where my sister and I must get that blood—my mom never mentioned any kind of a phoenix bloodline on her side."

"It's possible. Grims have done crazier things. My asshole of a half-sister was brought back to life by my father, and he used phoenix hearts to keep her going. I had to