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my fellow travelers. They were all familiar, but some I knew better than
others. Faci and Daisy, Dobrov and Camilla - they stood in a little group.
Dobrov wasn’t wearing a coat, and he shivered a little in the wind. Faci and
Daisy had their heads bent together, deep in conversation. Camilla was
examining her blood-red nails. I had tried for the past twenty-four hours to
catch Dobrov’s eye, but he had never once looked up.
    Faci was the strangest looking
paranormal I had ever seen. He didn’t have hair, and his eyes were so deeply
set in his head that it looked like there were two black holes in his face. To
make his appearing more damning, he had a beaked nose that tilted to the left,
and his cheeks had a sucked-in look that meant he hardly had lips or a chin.
    “He gets creepier every time I
see him,” said Lisabelle, wrinkling her nose.
    Sip shot her a warning look.
“Then don’t look at him.”
     
    Vanni, Trafton, Evan, and Rake
were there, along with Sip, Lisabelle, Lough, and me. There were several other
students I didn’t know well, but they seemed just as excited as the rest of us
to visit Golden Falls. The other chaperone, Keller’s friend Marcus, stood a bit
to the side. Despite my relationship with Keller, I had never spent much time
with Marcus. He was the most studious and hard-working fallen angel I’d ever
seen. Keller said that Marcus’s older sister had died young, and Marcus felt
that he needed to make his parents proud for both of them, which he had done.
Once he graduated he would go to work for President Caid, a very high honor.
    “There they are,” Vanni cried,
pointing upward. Following Vanni’s finger I craned my neck backward. As it
always was in the morning at that time of year, the sun was trying desperately
to poke through a gray haze.
    Through the mist came the
carriages, and I watched them, black dots in the sky, growing larger.
    Where, oh where, were we going?
    “What’s pulling them?” I asked
softly, dreading the answer.
    “Demons,” said Keller grimly, as
he too looked upward. “Golden Falls keeps demons as prisoners and brings them
out when they need cheap labor. They are only let out to run errands. They’ve
been captives for as long as I can remember. They say it reminds them of the
differences between paranormals and darkness.”
    I made a face. It was the first
thing I had heard about Golden Falls that was overtly jarring.
    “Don’t you mean free labor?”
Lisabelle asked, brow furrowed.
    Keller nodded. “That’s basically
what it is, but I think they trade with the demons for hellfire coals. Anyway,
they justify the imprisonment somehow.”
    “Hellfire coals are illegal, of
course,” said Lisabelle dryly. “Charming.”
    “Golden Falls has its own ways of
doing things,” said Zervos coldly. He was standing at the front of our little
group, but his eyes were on the carriages. “I’m sure that’s something that you
can relate to, Ms. Verlans. We do not question such a staunch supporter of
paranormals.”
    The wind got gustier as the
carriages drew closer.
    “Tell me he’s our other
chaperone. Go on, ruin my day before it’s even begun,” said Lough.
    “He’s our other chaperone,” said
Sip. “There, see? Not so bad. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. Just do it in
one go.”
    Lough frowned at the small
werewolf. “It was an awfully big Band-Aid.”
    “Are these things safe?” I asked,
pointing at the first black carriage. It looked old, and I wondered if it was
sturdy enough to pull us through the air. “Especially with the demons pulling
them?” I added, more or less redundantly.
    “Oh, they’re as safe as anything.
I think you’re spoiled,” said Zervos, almost to himself. “You have no idea what
it’s like out there where the demons can you get whenever you move. Nothing is
safe. Golden Falls might be even safer than Public.” His eyes glinted as he
looked to see how I would react to his grim words. I refused to give him