The vampire tilted his head when I asked the question, like a glowpuppy hearing a new note. "And why," the vampire asked, "do you want to know how to bring back the dead?"

I narrowed my eyes. I didn't have to bare my soul to the vampire—I'd chosen blackmail instead of polite conversation already, and there was no point in doubling back now.

But... some part of me wanted to say it aloud. To turn it from whispers that echoed in my head to words that, however terrible they were, would fade with time.

"My mother died forgiving me," I found myself saying, and the words tumbled out like cool, clear water from a long-clogged pipe. "The day I gained my attunement. My attunement to self-hatred." The vampire's eyes widened slightly. "I just... I have to know. If... she forgave me, what did she forgive me for? Was it... was it because I made her hate herself? Even at the—" Invisible thorns ringed my neck, and for a moment, I couldn't speak. "I just... I just have to ask."

The vampire closed his eyes, something like... remorse, flitting over his immortal expression. "You cannot resurrect a soul in its entirety," he said. "Like sand scattered in the wind, the memories that once made up your mother were dissolved into the infinity of thoughtspace."

I sagged. "I... I see."

"But," the vampire continued, "you may be able to access some of those memories."

My head snapped up.

"The memories of the dead precipitate into soulspace entities," the vampire began, and I wondered if he'd been a teacher at the Silent Academy in some era long past. "If you wish to seek the memories of your mother, seek out entities from beyond the rifts. Angels. Demons. Nameless things. The older, the better the chances are that they attracted a piece of her soul." The vampire met my gaze, something flinty in his eyes. "Is that all you ask of me, foolish child?"

I nodded, mind whirling with the implications. "Thank you."

He snorted. "Keep my secret and I will not slay you where you stand. That is the extent of thanks you will get from me."

###

"I don't have any memories of anyone named Quianna," the Angel of Arrogance said.

I clenched my fists. "You're sure?"

The Angel shrugged. "Was your mother a very arrogant person?"

She had died so that I could live. "Never," I said.

"Then why would I hold domain over a fragment of her soul?" the Angel asked, as if it was the most self-evident thing in the world.

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.

###

"I don't know how to summon a demon," Lucet said, lying down on the snow poff next to me. Ever since my fall from the clock tower, we'd taken to hanging out in places that didn't have a higher chance of us getting ourselves killed than normal. "It's restricted knowledge."

"Does Iola count as a demon," I wondered aloud. "I mean, he's certainly enough of a dick for it."

Lucet threw her hands in the air. "Rifts, I wish Iola was one of the students Odin took with him. I told him we were done and he just—just pretended like it never happened. Stayed in my room and slept the night and wouldn't leave and I just couldn't work myself up to tell him to get out again when he'd just fucking. Ignore. Me."

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She glared at the sky, her thick blue winter jacket slowly turning white as the snow began to bury her. I didn't say or do anything. I didn't have to.

I just existed next to her, and that was enough.

"They offered to kill him," she finally said. "Odin."

"Him being Iola?" I asked.

She made a frustrated scoff, as if to say, who else? "I said no. I don't want him dead. I just want him gone."

"We could leave," I found myself saying. Rationalizations sprung onto the tip of my tongue—I knew the Redlands, the Academy was too busy to hunt us down, and it wasn't safe here anyway—but Lucet was already speaking.

"We could," she said.

###

When life gave you demons, you made demonade. After a Demon of Empathy had inflicted half of the students of the Silent Academy for Witches with visions of power and offers of deals, Witch Aimes took it upon herself to turn the entire experience into a teachable lesson. She was, after all, my tutor at the Silent Academy; I wouldn't be surprised if she responded to her daughter crying about a boy being mean to her with "and what did we learn from this?"

"What did 'Stewie' look like when he showed up in your dreams?" Witch Aimes asked.

Her daughter sniffled on stage, rubbing her nose. "Big. Tall. Lotsa muscles."

"Was he a human?" Witch Aimes asked. The elf in the audience cleared his throat, and Witch Aimes amended her statement. "Or, that is, was he a person?"

"He looked like a people," Tisei said, although a hint of doubt had entered her voice. "Except... except at the end."

"Go on," Witch Aimes prompted. Tisei kicked her dangling legs back and forth; the chair she was on was too tall for her to even touch the ground.

"He said I had... re-sent-ment," Tisei enunciated, not meeting her mother's eyes.

"About what?" Witch Aimes asked, raising an eyebrow. What could you possibly have cause to be resentful of, her posture seemed to say. I supply you with everything I could ever need.

Witches used emotions like fires burned fuel. I'd gotten good at reading the subtext behind my witchcraft teacher's words.

"He said my momma doesn't love me," Tisei whispered. "That she cares about being right more than being a momma. He said... he said he could fix that. If I let him in."

The auditorium fell silent.

Then Witch Aimes shattered the silence with a contemptuous snort. "See?" She asked. "This is exactly the danger these demons pose. To a strong-willed mind, their words mean nothing—but to an impressionable child, a demon can easily corrupt them with falsehoods and foolish ideas. Keep an eye on your children, and if they start spouting any such nonsense, bring them to me."

Tisei looked down, expression unreadable, and I winced. The Demon of Empathy wouldn't have whispered those insidious words if there wasn't a sickly vein of truth feeding them.

But no matter how much of an arrogant little prick she was, she was also the only witch here who'd stood up to the Demon of Empathy themself and won. So we all had to listen to her, if only a little.

"And now for a demonstration." Heh. Demon-stration. "Demons of Empathy strike by creating an emotional connection between themself and the victim." Privately, I agreed that her daughter was a victim, although of who, the jury was still out on.

"But connections go both ways," she continued, and here her gaze grew fierce. The audience leaned in, and I couldn't blame them. Because even if Witch Aimes was a self-righteous jerk, she was our self-righteous jerk. The Demon of Empathy had hurt us all, and we wanted to know how to fight back. "That connection can, with the right knowledge, be reversed. Our top witches are still working on ways to strengthen it beyond its original form, but for now, we can at least manage to speak back to the demon, in the same way it's spoken to us."

Witch Aimes lowered her voice, and for a moment, it was as if the stage didn't exist. As if it was just her and her daughter, and for all the faults in their relationship, a mother and daughter they still were.

"The one who hurt you. You can say anything you want to them, or nothing at all. I give you this power, to do with what you will."

I felt something travel from Aimes' soul to her daughter's, and Tisei pressed herself closer to her mother's form, eyes squeezed shut.

Then she whispered, "You were wrong. My momma does love me. In her own, silly way."

The words rippled out through the world, and I knew that somewhere, someone who'd just been struck the first blow of a long war was listening.

Aimes smiled, and for a heartbeat, I thought I saw something relieved in her gaze. "I love you too, poppy."

Then she leaned back. "That concludes today's lesson on demonology," Witch Aimes, said, straightening up as if nothing had happened. "I'll see you again tomorrow—and don't forget to read chapters eight through twelve of Defense against Demons."

The class filed out, sluicing around me as I sat in thought.

I'd been spoken to by the Demon of Empathy as well.

And I had a thing or two I wanted to say back.

"Witch Aimes?" I asked, raising my hand. "Could you show me how to cast that spell?"