The summoning circle was supposed to produce a minor imp. Something manageable. Something Thea could bind to her will for the three days she needed to pass her final practicum at the Astral Academy.
Instead, she got Azrael.
He materialised in a column of black flame that singed the ceiling of her dormitory, set off the sprinklers, and introduced himself with the kind of casual authority that suggested he was accustomed to making an entrance.
“You called?” He was tall — impossibly so, nearly seven feet, with the lithe build of a predator and eyes that were solid black from corner to corner, like windows into a void. His skin was the deep amber of polished bronze, and two small horns curved elegantly from his temples, disappearing into waves of dark hair. He was, by any standard, devastatingly attractive, in the way that forest fires are attractive if you have a very specific aesthetic preference.
Thea stared up at him from behind her textbook, which she was holding like a shield. “You are not an imp.”
“Certainly not. I am a Duke of the Seventh Infernal Court. Your summoning circle was drawn with admirable precision but catastrophically incorrect parameters. You summoned approximately nine thousand ranks above your target.”
“Oh god.”
“Different department entirely.”
The situation was, by the standards of the Astral Academy, a disaster of historic proportions. Students were permitted to summon minor entities for practical examinations. They were emphatically not permitted to summon Infernal Dukes, who were classified as Class Nine threats and required a minimum of twelve certified demonologists to contain.
Thea had one textbook and a circle drawn in chalk.
“I should banish you,” she said, pacing her flooded dormitory while Azrael sat cross-legged on her bed, which creaked under his weight but held. He had made himself comfortable with alarming speed.
“You could try. The banishment formula for a Duke requires components you don’t have: hellfire ash, the tears of a penitent angel, and approximately forty minutes of uninterrupted Latin chanting. Do you speak Latin?”
“I barely speak English under stress.”
“Then we appear to be stuck with each other.” He tilted his head, studying her with those void-dark eyes. “Alternatively, we could make a bargain.”
Thea knew enough about demonology to know that demon bargains were the supernatural equivalent of fine-print contracts: technically fair, practically ruinous. “I am not selling my soul.”
“I don’t want your soul. Souls are overrated — most of them are poorly maintained and depreciate rapidly. No, what I want is far simpler.” He leaned forward, and the void-black of his eyes seemed to swirl with distant stars. “I want to experience one week of mortal life. Seven days of eating food that has flavour, feeling sunlight that has warmth, existing in a world where time actually passes and things actually matter. In exchange, I will serve as your practicum summon, behave impeccably, and ensure you receive the highest marks in your class.”
“Why would a Duke of Hell want to experience mortal life?”
Something flickered behind those starless eyes — not vulnerability, exactly, but its cousin. Weariness. The bone-deep exhaustion of a being who has existed for millennia in a realm where nothing changes, nothing grows, nothing surprises.
“Because eternity is exquisitely boring,” he said quietly. “And I have not been surprised by anything in six thousand years. Your summoning surprised me. I would like to see what other surprises the mortal world has to offer.”
Against every instinct she possessed, Thea extended her hand. “One week. You behave. No corruption, no temptation, no Infernal nonsense.”
He took her hand. His grip was warm — almost hot — and the contact sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the way his fingers curled around hers with a gentleness she had not expected from a being forged in hellfire.
“Agreed,” he said. “No Infernal nonsense. Just mortal experiences.”
The week was chaos.
Day one: Azrael discovered coffee. The resulting enthusiasm nearly levelled the campus Starbucks. He consumed fourteen espressos, vibrated at a frequency visible to the naked eye, and declared caffeine the single greatest achievement of mortal civilization.
Day two: Thea took him to the campus gardens. He stood in the sunlight for an hour, perfectly still, his bronze face tilted skyward, and when she asked if he was alright, he said, “I have never felt warmth that was not designed to cause pain. This is… this is extraordinary.” His voice cracked on the last word, and Thea felt her professional detachment take a significant hit.
Day three: the practicum. Azrael played his role with Oscar-worthy restraint, manifesting as a vaguely threatening but controllable entity while Thea demonstrated binding techniques, negotiation protocols, and emergency containment procedures. Her professor gave her a perfect score and asked, privately, how a second-year student had managed to summon something that registered as a Class Nine on the threat assessment scale.
“Chalk error,” Thea said.
Day four: Azrael discovered rain. He stood in the campus quadrangle with his arms spread and his face turned to the sky, and the rain sizzled slightly where it hit his skin, producing tiny wisps of steam that made him look like a bronze statue that had been left in the sun. Students gathered to watch, assuming it was some kind of performance art.
Day five: Thea took him to a concert. A string quartet, performing Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Azrael, Infernal Duke, terror of the Seventh Court, six thousand years old and forged in the fires of damnation, wept. The tears were black — actual, literal black tears that rolled down his bronze cheeks like ink — and Thea handed him a tissue and pretended not to notice, and something in her chest cracked open like an egg and spilled warmth everywhere.
Day six: they sat together on the roof of her dormitory and talked until dawn. About eternity and mortality. About the difference between existing and living. About the way music could destroy a demon faster than any holy weapon, because beauty was the one thing Hell could not replicate.
“I do not want to go back,” he said, as the sunrise painted the campus in shades of gold that made his bronze skin glow. “I have experienced more in six days with you than in six thousand years in the Infernal Courts. Mortal life is messy and brief and overwhelmingly beautiful, and you are the most overwhelmingly beautiful part of it.”
“Azrael —”
“I know. I know the bargain. One week. But I wanted to say it, because demons do not often get to speak truths, and you deserve to know that you have made an immortal being reconsider the value of his entire existence.”
Day seven.
Thea woke at dawn and found Azrael sitting in her summoning circle, fully dressed, his void-black eyes fixed on the chalk lines with an expression of quiet resignation. The bargain required him to return at midnight. The circle was the door.
“There must be another way,” she said.
“There is not. A Duke cannot abandon the Courts. The consequences would be—”
“I’m a summoner. What if I kept a permanent summoning active? A standing invitation?”
He looked at her sharply. “A permanent summoning would require an anchor. A constant, living connection that keeps the channel open. The strain on the summoner—”
“Would be manageable if the demon in question was cooperative rather than adversarial. Which you are. Azrael, I have spent my entire academic career studying the theoretical limits of summoning magic. Let me push them.”
“Why?”
“Because you wept at Barber’s Adagio. Because you stood in the rain like it was a miracle. Because you drank fourteen espressos and called coffee humanity’s greatest achievement. Because you are, impossibly, the most human person I have ever met, and you happen to be a demon.” She knelt beside him in the circle. “Let me be your anchor. Let me keep the door open. You can come and go, exist in both worlds, experience everything you have been missing for six millennia.”
“Thea. The Academy would expel you. The Infernal Courts would investigate. The consequences—”
“The consequences are my problem. Your only job is to say yes.”
The Duke of the Seventh Infernal Court, six thousand years old, forged in hellfire, terror of the damned, looked at the small, fierce, chalk-stained summoner kneeling beside him, and said the word he had spent an eternity learning to avoid, because demons were not supposed to agree to things that made them vulnerable.
“Yes,” he said.
She rewrote the summoning circle in permanent ink. She anchored it to her heartbeat, her breath, the steady pulse of her magic. The connection snapped into place like a bridge between worlds, and Azrael felt it — the permanent, living link to the mortal realm, to sunlight and rain and coffee and music and the woman who had accidentally summoned him and deliberately chosen to keep him.
He kissed her in the centre of the circle, and his lips were warm and tasted of coffee and rain and the sweet, impossible flavour of a surprise six thousand years in the making.
The summoning circle glowed steady. The door stayed open. And a Duke of Hell and a student summoner began the most unconventional relationship in the history of either realm, one cup of coffee and one sunset and one piece of beautiful music at a time.