I’ll give Maggie Edwards this, she wasn’t one to dawdle. When I arrived at the base of the enormous school tower, she was waiting in an electric sedan. The redheaded teacher pointed angrily at the passenger seat and I hopped in. Before I’d had a chance to buckle in, she was shoving my head down. “Don’t let anybody see you!”

            I grunted, forcing her hand off my head. I stayed prone on the seat, though. “I don’t see the cause for this rudeness. We’ve been on such good terms lately.”

            She didn’t respond right away, instead stomping down on the accelerator. The high-pitched whine was quiet, but the force of the acceleration didn’t disappoint. I closed my eyes reflexively. It wasn’t that I was afraid, exactly. I was simply used to a slower pace of life, being from a land serviced by animal drawn carts or, if we were lucky, simple locomotives. Besides, Ms. Edwards’ frantic maneuvering didn’t inspire confidence.

            “You can open your eyes, you big baby.”

I couldn’t see outside, but the view was still lovely. Maggie Edwards was one of the best put together women I’d ever had the displeasure to meet. She was just shy of ten years my senior, though she could have passed for a student with the right makeup and clothes. She wore her typical attire, a white blouse and pencil skirt that seemed to be a size too small on purpose. They did a fantastic job of advertising her charms. Still, her most striking features were above the neck. Her thick glasses, severe hair bun and harsh blue eyes intrigued me in much the same way I imagine moths feel about flames.

When I eventually tore my gaze away from her (I was a taken devil, after all), I noticed a green blur on either side of us as the forest zipped on by. “Can I get up now?”

“Yes, we should be away from prying eyes.”

I sat up and unruffled my hair. One does have to project a certain dignity, after all. “Alright, you have me. What’s the situation with Obe? The last I heard, he was unconscious in a Wizard Corps prison in Tokyo.”

            “You’re a few weeks behind the times.” She cast me a sidelong gaze. I wished she would pay more attention where she was going, the way she was weaving between the other cars. “After he didn’t come out of the coma you put him in, it was decided to move him to a military hospital here in Nagoya.”

            I raised an eyebrow at that. “That’s quite a long way away. Are there no military hospitals in the capital?”

            Maggie gave me a little smirk. “The Holy Brotherhood has a long reach. A few words in the right ears and they brought him in striking distance.”

            “Striking distance? Oh, I see. Is this an assassination, then?”

            Her eyes widened. “Don’t say that so casually! Haru hasn’t given us any reason to silence him.”

            “Yet,” I said. “He’s not one to suffer in silence. Remember our arrangement. My membership in your little social club in exchange for keeping him from revealing how I beat him the last time we fought.”

            She snorted at that. “Don’t act like you’ve done me any great favor. You took out my whole team, maimed my lover and threatened me with exposure. All you’ve done to pay me back so far is give me a few lessons demonic magic.”

            “The Brotherhood is lying low after your people botched the attempt on Mr. Maki,” I replied. “I haven’t had a chance to render any service.”

“Well, consider this the first down payment for not turning your demonkin ass in,” she said.

I’d never tell her this, but I felt oddly at home whenever I had these little chats with Maggie. It reminded me of dealings with my fellow devils, full of hostility tempered by mutual benefit. It was more familiar than dealing with my human friends.

My friends? By Our Father Below, I’d forgotten. I would have to come up with a good excuse for running away from Kiyo. We had been driving for about fifteen minutes, which meant that Kiyo would have been truly worried for about a half hour by that point. I was surprised she wasn’t blowing up my phone already.

I turned away from Maggie; she was rather distracting, and I needed some time to be creative. It was amazing how quickly the urban sprawl began once you got outside of the artificial forest surrounding the tower. Japan had always been a heavily urbanized country, and waves of refugees from Asia, the Americas and Europe had forced them to build out even more.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

“I told you, a military hospital,” she said in an annoyed tone.

“Which one? I need a cover story for my girlfriend. It’s easier to lie if you keep it close to the truth.”

“Gozaisho. It’s up in the mountains outside the city.”

I opened up the SatoChat app and considered my words to Kiyo. What would be likely? “Hm. Is it for prisoners, like our dear Mr. Obe?”

“No, it’s generally for Wizard Corps members. I actually went there once while I was in active duty.”

“Oh? When were you wounded in battle?”

She barked a harsh laugh at that. “Nothing so heroic. I had kidney stones. It’s a beautiful place to convalesce, if you have to. It was a ski resort in better times, and the rooms are still in great shape.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind the next time I’m wounded.” I tapped my chin as I considered my words. That was the advantage of these messaging apps. I had time to consider my lies, and my face couldn’t give me away. “Hm, who could I be visiting up there believably?”

 “Family would make sense,” she replied as we turned. After a moment, we left behind the city proper and were in the countryside again as we into the highlands.

“I don’t dare make it that,” I replied. “Kiyo’s hungry for details about me. She’d insist on meeting them.”

Maggie shot me a wry smirk. “You know, you could just break up with her. Then you wouldn’t have to keep up this facade.”

“No, thank you.”

“Really, you need some new friends. It’s dangerous that you’re so close with that bunch. Hiro Takehara and his friends are like unto demonkin with the Brotherhood after they uncovered our operation in Taiwan.”

“If you keep using the word for anybody who opposes you, it’s going to lose its meaning,” I said.

“It’s appropriate for that lot,” she said. “Being exposed in Taiwan is what drove us underground in the first place. Ms. Jones herself was the one who took out their commander, Holy Brother Gyrfalcon, after his magic ran out. They’re your enemies too, now.”

“I’m grandfathered in,” I countered. “That all happened before I even met them, and well before the Brotherhood had any claim on me. Besides, you agreed she’s off limits, so I don’t see the harm. Any friends outside the Brotherhood are just as big a threat, and you’ve been quite mum on identity of the other members. Well, besides Mrs. Perera, and I figured her out on my own.”

“Regardless, how are you still not done playing with Kiyo? When you first arrived at the school, I got the impression that you weren’t the sort to settle down, the way you were chasing half the girls in your class.”

“I’m not really. I’m just… enjoying myself, is all.”

She chuckled at that. “You’re a funny one. It’s just as well you’re a fake, Soren. Even you don’t understand yourself. It must be easier to have a role to play.” Since I had met her, Maggie Edwards had always regarded me with a mix of hostility and contempt. That might have been the first bit of true warmth she’d ever shown me. It was almost distressing. “And here’s what you can tell Kiyo. There’s another student from the Merlin Academy of Magic at this school who’s in a bad way. They’ve taken a turn for the worse, and your favorite teacher wanted you there to say goodbye.”

My guts clenched. The real Soren Marlowe had been a student at Merlin under Maggie, in both the innocent and sensual senses. It was why she’d known I was a fraud from the moment we met. “Wait, you’re not the only survivor?” Maggie by herself was enough of a threat. I didn’t want to consider more Merlin alumni running around!

“Oh, you should be so lucky, you faker,” she said, though it lacked the venom she usually threw into that insult. “There’s a few, though most are safely in Ireland. Poor Roger Whitmore, though? When the Grim Horde attacked, he got hit with a poison cloud spell that destroyed his lungs. He’s been on a ventilator ever since.”

“Poison cloud?” I’d been the only devil on hand when we assaulted the school, and I hadn’t cast anything like that. “I see. And how close was Soren to Roger?”

“As close as you like, considering he doesn’t exist.” She smacked me lightly on the shoulder, which was only a sting to my pride. “Keep up, Magpie. It’s close to the truth. We are visiting a fellow student who is in a bad way, and I did ask you to come.” I wanted to smack the smug grin from her face. “You’re awfully trusting for a double agent.”

Triple, but that wasn’t anything I needed to share with her. “Alright, Roger Whitmore.” I wrote the message to Kiyo and sent it off.

Kiyo usually responded to texts immediately. It took her five minutes to reply.

“Oh man, that sucks! I hope Roger’s okay. Don’t worry about me, I’ll just play a game or something. Miss you!”

“Don’t tell anyone else,” I typed back. “Technically, we’re not to leave the campus.”

“Of course! You can count on me.”

As I returned the sentiments, I felt about an inch tall. I told myself to develop more of a taste for lying to her. I’d been doing it since we met. Nothing had changed, really.

Yet, the heavy weight wouldn’t leave my shoulders as we drove up the winding road into the mountains.

Thank you for reading, as always!

If you'd like to get early access to chapters, you can check out my Patreon.

However you choose to read, I'm so glad you're here. Have a great one!