Page 33 of Malice in e minor

“How did you⁠—”

I’d caught him in enough plots that he should know I watched him sometimes. I didn’t have some succubus spy after him. I didn’t even have one after Klaus. Klaus was amusing, but he’d never signed his name in blood.

“Enough. I’m an angel and you know I have magic. We have a problem.”

“I know. She’s about five foot five and looks like a vampire.”

I snarled at him. Harlowe was not a problem. They didn’t know all of this was to free me from my cage. He thought he just worked for me in the business of souls. Faustus was a worm. He was fine with them bargaining their souls to me, but he’d draw the line at freeing me from my cage.

Because he was a knob.

“Isn’t she a few centuries younger than you?” he asked.

“It’s not like that. I like her talent and I want to see it grow.”

Maybe I liked her spunk too. She was easy on the eyes, but I wasn’t my brothers. I didn’t do relationships with humans. Or at least, I hadn’t before. They were breakable and didn’t live long.

Did I? She was currently my favorite television show.

Faustus just rolled his eyes, and I wanted to snap his neck. How dare he thought he knew me? Still, I needed him right now.

“What’s the problem then?”

“She just left your office. She doesn’t have the talent to be here, but she thinks she does. Isobel only made it into orchestra because someone left early. She probably won’t be accepted next year and she wouldn’t be if any freshman who is better than her decided to audition.”

“Yes, but you said it was fine to take students with passable talent. Aren’t they ripe for your little deals?”

Fucker. He had me there. Faustus made a deal for knowledge and he usually just squandered it. I hated when he actually used it to correct me. Yes, I did say it was fine to take students like Isobel and it wasn’t just the money.

Blackvale Academy was centuries old. In the early days, when people believed, they would summon Mephistopheles for various reasons. Sometimes, it was talent and sometimes, it was fame. You had to be very specific, or you’d be famous for being terrible. It was how Florence Foster Jenkins sold out shows. You could ask for both and some people should.

Some people rightfully blamed the Devil when someone became good overnight. Sometimes, it wasn’t me. They just put in the late nights, but other times, it was. That led to people who actually could free me looking into how to make a deal with the Devil.

It was this whole beautiful system that was no longer relevant because people no longer believed and you could make being bad at something your whole schtick if you had an ounce of self awareness. There was a tome in the library that spelled out exactly how to summon Mephistopheles and I couldn’t remember the last time it had been checked out.

“Yes, but Isobel isn’t looking to summon a demon and make a deal for talent. She’s looking at taking out the competition and riding the coattails of other students.”

I had my eye on Leif. He was dedicated to his art and had the talent to go with it. He wasn’t a composer, so he couldn’t write anything with the Devil’s Tritone, but he had a black little heart for such a sweet marshmallow. He didn’t want to choreograph ballets about princesses and princes. He wanted to explore the dark nature of man and he wanted to do it to original music.

She was making him uncomfortable. That would make anyone uncomfortable.

“This is an arts school,” Faustus said, like I was a total idiot. “Everyone is in competition or trying to ride coattails. Someone always really wanted the part or spot someone else got. People try to take out the competition every year. Your golden boys have run off three students and are disrupting Nutcracker rehearsals trying to take out a fourth. Your new pet is a big girl and if she wants to make it in this world, she needs to learn to deal with some healthy competition.”

I might be stuck in a cage in Hell with limited access to the real world, but I’d been watching them. They fascinated me. For all the beauty they created, they also did very ugly things to each other. There was a difference between healthy competition and what Isobel was planning to do to Harlowe to get rid of her.

I was instrumental in the founding of this school and holdings I had set up owned the school, but Faustus was the public, known figurehead. I needed him where he was, even if I couldn’t stand him.

Isobel’s father was a prominent politician. He was an asshole most of the time, but he did love his daughter. He voted to cut any social programs that helped people, but he opposed any funding cuts to the arts because of Isobel.

He was also a large donor to the school. My holdings kept the school running with all the expensive productions they did and celebrity guest teachers. Donations looked good on paper and I didn’t need anyone looking that hard at my businesses finances since I was immortal.

I couldn’t tell Faustus to kick her out for something she might do. She could have just been jealous and venting with no intention of doing anything to Harlowe. Faustus was a relic who didn’t think men could be sexually harassed and Leif hadn’t technically reported her.

The entire ballet department was running interference to keep Isobel away from Leif, but unless Leif spoke up, I couldn’t pull rank on Faustus, which I was about to do for that Belinda girl since I was able to leave my cage.

I had a feeling Isobel’s father would make things bad for the school no matter what reason she was kicked out, but there was an entire department who witnessed most of it if Leif spoke up.

Which meant I had to leave things in the hands of Topher and Azriel. Azriel could be subtle when he wanted to be. I just hoped he wanted to be. I could feel myself being dragged back to my cage. I had wanted to visit Harlowe, and I knew why I couldn’t. It would spook her.