His little nostrils flared, a greedy look in his eyes. Lincoln took a few wide steps back and the demon started to crawl down from the wall. When he hit the ground, he snatched a Skittle and gobbled it up, a thin sliver of drool falling from his mouth.

Lincoln kicked more toward him, the demon feverishly reaching out with his rat-like paws to pick them up, and shove them in his mouth. He was kind of cute when he wasn’t trying to blind us with acid. Lincoln charged forward, sword raised with blue sparks shooting off the tip. Blake came down on the demon with the flamethrower, at the same time Lincoln’s sword took his head off.

Yikes.

The sight of his smoldering body hit me then, the severity of the situation setting in.

Lincoln spun on me. “Start talking!”

I winced. So much for possibly showing me preferential treatment. “Well….” I wasn’t going to rat Shea out in front of Raphael, and I wasn’t sure if Lincoln would protect her. I’d like to think he would, but I didn’t know. So it was hoes before bros and all of that. But I was also a really bad liar.

“I opened a portal to Hell by accident,” Shea confessed before I could speak.

I shot her an incredulous look. The last thing we needed was to get kicked out.

Mr. Claymore stepped forward, disbelief in his eyes. “You what? That’s very advanced Magery.”

Shea tucked a brown curl behind her ear. “Yeah… I might’ve read a book in your office I probably wasn’t supposed to… and obviously I wasn’t trying to open a portal to Hell. I was trying to open one to the library or something, to practice for the gauntlet.”

Raphael surveyed the scene and shared a curious look with Mr. Claymore. “It could’ve been a lot worse. Portal opening is a fourth-year skill,” he told Shea.

She winced, her cheeks reddening. “I didn’t even know opening portals to Hell was a thing, or I never would’ve tried it.”

He bobbed his head. “And you closed the portal all by yourself?” She nodded, and Raphael shared another look with Mr. Claymore, who nodded.

“Am I getting kicked out?” Shea was still holding her injured arm. She really needed to go to the healing clinic soon.

Raphael shook his head. “No, but I’m assigning you to an independent study with Mr. Claymore. One hour a week, on your own time.”

Shea looked confused. “Okay….”

I was unclear whether that was a punishment or not. It seemed Shea was too.

Raphael’s gaze roamed the room. “All right, let’s reset the demon alarm. Noah, please walk Shea to the healing clinic. And Lincoln, I’d appreciate it if you oversaw this cleanup.” He gestured to the room of dead demons.

“Yes, sir,” Lincoln replied, then shot me a glare. As if it were possible for me to control Shea. Like it was my fault.

The room cleared out quickly, leaving just Lincoln, Blake, and me.

Lincoln crossed the space quickly and ran his eyes over me. “What the hell, Bri? You’re supposed to be lying low. Now you’re inviting demons into the training room?”

“You think I hatched this master plan?” I asked, with a hand on my hip.

His face softened. “No, but when you walk in to see your girlfriend fighting off a Hellhound, and a Snakeroot demon, it doesn’t look good. You scared the shit out of me.” He cupped my face gently.

I grinned. “Girlfriend?”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

I leaned in to give him a quick kiss. When we separated, he sighed. “Seriously though, I was really worried. The alarm went off, you weren’t answering your phone, and you weren’t in your dorm. I freaked.”

It was that admission that showed me how much Lincoln really cared. At first, I thought we might be some fling, but with each event that brought us closer and closer, the relationship felt more and more serious. Like a longer-lasting thing.

The door to the training room opened then. “Atwater! Healing clinic, now!” Noah barked, then shut the door.

Ugh. Duty calls.

Chapter Nineteen

I raced to the healing clinic after Noah. “What’s up? Is it overflowing in there?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, but as your master healing teacher, I want you to heal Shea’s arm. And she’s in pain, so you need to hurry.”

I stopped dead. “What? No way! I’ll screw it up. You do it.”

I’d only healed very minor things, like an infection from an ingrown toenail, Mrs. Greely’s headache, Shea’s menstrual cramps. I was more of an assistant, really good at grabbing gauze and bandages.

He gripped my arm. “Demon injuries are very common in the war zones, and if you’re given a healer position in the Fallen Army, you’ll need to know how to heal a Snakeroot acid burn.”

My eyes widened as he dragged me across the quad. “She’s my best friend. If I mess it up, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

He looked back at me with smoldering eyes and tousled hair. “I care about her too, ya know.”

I thought they were just make-out buddies. “You do?” I questioned. Now was as good a time as any to probe him for info.

He smirked. “She’s a bitch to me, keeps me in my place. I like that about her. She’s… one of a kind.”

Did he just call my best friend a bitch? But in a weird, cute way? I was choosing to focus on the “one of a kind” comment instead, because that was super sweet.

“She thinks you’re a manwhore,” I told him honestly.

His grin widened. “I know. That’s her pet name for me.”

They had a weird-ass relationship, I’d give them that.

“Come on. Let’s go help her,” he urged.

When we stepped into her room, her fiery gaze pinned Noah to the wall. “Feel free to take your time. It’s not like I’m dying in here or anything.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine. Brielle’s here to heal you.”

Shea’s eyes bugged out, sweat beading her brow. “What? Has she ever done this before?”

I winced. “Not really, but—”

“But I’m here, and I’m the best healer this school has. And a wonderful teacher.” Noah winked at Shea.

Shea scoffed. “I’m glad your ego is still alive and thriving. Just hurry. It feels like it’s going to fall off.”

Oh God. The walls are closing in. I’m going to faint. I can’t do this.

“Ready?” Noah asked.

I gulped. “Of course.”

Rule number 1 of healing: Act confident even if you’re scared shitless. A scared patient is a bad situation.

Noah positioned himself over my right shoulder with his hand on my lower back, pushing me closer to Shea. I sat next to her in the healer’s chair, where Noah, or one of the other healers usually sat.

She gave me that look that said “if you mangle my arm, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Bitch, I’ve got this,” I told her confidently.

That made her lips curl. “You better, or you owe me a box of Cloud Nine Donuts.”

Ha! That would be my entire two-week paycheck. “Deal.”

Noah dropped a bucket at my feet.

Frowning, I looked up at my teacher. “What’s that for?”

“You’ll see. Activate your healing centers, and I’ll guide you through the rest,” Noah instructed.

Activate my healing centers. No big deal.

I stared at my palms, and then to the Raphael tattoo on my forearm. Wake up. I pushed the thought to my hands. I’d done it a whopping three times in my life, so I was hoping it still worked.

“Relax. Your power will automatically reveal itself in the presence of someone injured,” Noah assured me.

I knew that.

I let my hand hover over Shea’s bubbled and angry red arm; the skin stretched so taut it looked like it might burst. Sure enough, my palm started to heat up, emitting a faint orange glow.

“It’s working!” I tried not to sound too rookie, but I was pretty excited.

“Of course it is.” Cool, calm and collected. That was Noah.

The orange healing light was different from the Celestial light we learned about in class with Fred. The Celestial light could be used as a weapon, this was always a healing tool.

“Now, assess her injury with your power, and take it into you. Not too much, and not too fast—like Lincoln did with your tattoos. Just go easy, or you’ll be in worse shape than her.”

Yeah, he’d lovingly drilled that into my head every day for the past four months. Low and slow was the healer motto. Healers couldn’t heal without taking on the malady themselves; it was a Catch-22. The stronger the healer, the more serious the injury they could take on. If a beginner healer tried to heal a person dying of a knife wound, that healer could die. Noah was the strongest among all of the healers apparently, which made him the master teacher.

I started my breathing techniques, in and out. When I went in, I sucked a little of Shea’s burn into me, through my hands. I knew it was working the second the stinging sensation lit up the veins in my arm.

My eyelids snapped open. “It burns.”

“I feel a bit better,” Shea confessed.

Maybe I wasn’t going to screw this up.

Noah rested a hand on my back. “Good, now breathe through it. Your body was made for this. The blood of the Archangel of Healing runs through your veins. With training and focus, there’s no sickness you can’t expunge.”

I was supposed to concentrate, but at his words, my father popped into my mind. “Can you heal cancer?” I asked randomly.

Shea squirmed in her seat, and Noah looked uncomfortable. “Cancer is… difficult to explain. We can talk about this in detail another time, okay?”

He knew. He must’ve read my file too, because he was giving me that pity look. I just nodded.

Focus, you idiot. Shea needs you.

Closing my eyes, I placed my other hand over Shea’s arm. Taking in a deep breath, I sucked more of the injury in through my palm.

If someone had given me the ability to choose any superpower, it wouldn’t be flying, although that was pretty great. It wouldn’t be manifesting a million dollars, although that would be great too. It would be to end human suffering from illness. Watching my father, the strongest member of my family, be reduced to skin and bones, to lose his dignity, to cry out in pain, it was life-altering. If I could learn to take that from people, I would.

If practicing and becoming stronger could afford me the ability to be a great healer like Noah, then that’s the path I wanted to take after school. I didn’t want to be some raging soldier, with a high demon-kill record like Lincoln. I wanted to heal people. And not just people who were deemed ‘worthy’—I wanted to heal anyone. Whoever was hurt or suffering deserved an end to that. I didn’t realize until right then just how passionate I was about it.