Something freezing cold crashed over me.

I bolted upright with a strangled yelp as icy water drenched me from head to toe. The shock obliterated every trace of sleep from my mind, my heart hammering wildly as freezing water streamed down my face, soaked through the uniform I had never bothered changing out of, and pooled across the mattress beneath me.

"What the hell—"

A hand clamped firmly over my mouth.

I jerked instinctively, only to find a pair of familiar golden eyes staring back at me.

Kian stood over my bed, one hand covering my mouth while an empty wooden bucket dangled lazily from the other. His black hair was slightly damp from the night's mist, and despite having just assaulted me with a bucket of freezing water, he looked completely unimpressed.

"Keep your voice down." He tipped his head towards Lilith's bed. "You'll wake the others."

I glared at him over his fingers.

After a moment, he removed his hand and straightened. "You're late."

I blinked, still trying to process what had just happened. "...Late?"

"For someone who claims to want to survive," he said flatly, "you sleep surprisingly well."

I looked around the room.

The dormitory was almost completely dark, the only light spilling faintly through the open bathroom door. Lilith was still cocooned beneath her blankets, one arm hanging lazily over the side of the bed, while a quick glance towards the bunks told me Rivena and Eryx hadn't stirred either. Apart from their slow, steady breathing, the only sound was the quiet drip... drip... drip... of water falling from my hair onto the soaked sheets.

I looked back at Kian. "You woke me up for... what, exactly?"

"You were told midnight." His tone suggested that explained everything.

I frowned.

Then the memory hit me.

If you want to survive, meet me behind the academy at midnight.

"...Oh."

Kian turned towards the door.

"Follow me if you're coming." His hand settled on the handle. "Otherwise, I don't particularly care what happens to you."

With that, he stepped into the hallway.

Still dripping onto the floor, I scrambled after him before he disappeared. "Can I at least get changed first?"

He didn't even glance back.

I sighed. "Guess that's a no."

With another miserable glance at my drenched bed, I hurried after him.

* * *

"Okay, stand in front of me," Kian said.

He had brought me out to the middle of what looked like an endless field. There were no trees. No buildings. No training dummies. No weapon racks. Nothing but open grass stretching beneath the crimson glow of the Underworld sky.

I stepped in front of him, folding my arms.

"Okay... what now?"

"Who are the Nine Kings?" he asked, absent-mindedly cracking his knuckles as though he had all the time in the world.

I frowned. "What?"

He clasped his hands behind his back. "Name the Nine Kings."

"What does that have to do with me surviving?"

A short laugh escaped him. 

"You think you'll fool anyone if you don't know the first thing about our society?" He straightened, his golden eyes fixing on mine. "Xael tasked me with making sure you survive."

He paused just long enough for the words to sink in.

"That includes making sure the professors don't decide you're too incompetent to keep alive."

"They wouldn't..." The protest died in my throat almost immediately.

Professor Kaidros hadn't looked remotely concerned when Kaelen had nearly thrown me into the lava beneath the combat arena.

If anything...

He'd looked mildly inconvenienced.

"So," Kian said, sounding as though his patience had already begun wearing thin, "who are the Nine Kings?"

"All of them?"

"Preferably."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Um..."

One name surfaced through the panic.

"Paimon?"

"Good." His expression didn't change. "You have eight remaining."

I stared blankly at him. "Casper?"

The word escaped before I had a chance to stop it. I had absolutely no idea where it had come from.

Kian blinked once. "...Wrong."

"Oh, give me a break," I shot back. "I only got here yesterday."

"Every child born in Gehenna knows the answer."

"Well, I wasn't exactly born here."

His gaze never left mine."Precisely."

Without the slightest warning—

He moved.

Every muscle in my body locked as a sliver of dread crawled slowly up my spine.

Where—

Movement.

Right in front of me.

He was suddenly close enough that I instinctively stumbled backwards, my body reacting long before my mind had caught up. His hand shot towards me, and I threw myself sideways.

For one glorious second, I thought I'd escaped.

Then he was gone again.

A rush of air brushed past my shoulder.

No.

He hadn't disappeared. He'd simply moved faster than my eyes could follow.

I spun around just in time to find him already standing behind me.

"Too slow."

His fingers closed around my wrist and the world flipped. One moment my feet were planted firmly on the ground. The next they weren't touching it at all.

He pivoted smoothly, borrowing my own momentum as though it belonged to him. The crimson sky spun overhead before my back slammed into the earth hard enough to drive every breath from my lungs.

Pain exploded through my shoulders.

For several long seconds I could only lie there, staring helplessly at the sky while my lungs struggled to remember how breathing worked.

A shadow settled across me.

Kian knelt beside me.

One knee rested lightly across my arm, pinning it with effortless precision, while two fingers came to rest against the side of my throat.

His golden eyes met mine. "Dead."

Neither of us moved.

I could feel my pulse hammering wildly beneath his fingertips.

Which meant...

He could feel it too.

He didn't comment on it.

"The Nine Kings," he said quietly, his fingers still resting against my throat. His golden eyes never left mine as he recited each name with deliberate patience, giving me just enough time to commit them to memory. "Paimon... Belial... Asmoday... Zagan... Bael... Beleth... Vine... Purson... Balam. Learn them. Every demon in Gehenna knows those names. So will you."

Only then did he lift his hand away and rise smoothly to his feet, as though pinning me to the ground had required no more effort than taking a leisurely stroll across the field.

By the time I managed to sit upright, he'd already returned to the place we'd started, folding his arms behind his back.

"You'll remember them," he said matter-of-factly. "If not because you studied them..."

A faint breeze stirred the grass between us.

"Then because I'll keep asking until you do."

His expression settled back into its usual unreadable calm.

"Again."

"I don't know!" I snapped, scrambling back onto my feet. My shoulders still throbbed where I'd slammed into the ground, and every muscle in my back protested as I straightened. "How am I supposed to memorise all of that after hearing it once?"

Kian didn't answer my complaint.

Instead, he began walking a slow circle around me, his footsteps almost soundless against the damp grass. He let out a quiet sigh through his nose, as though having to repeat himself was already becoming tiresome.

"Listen carefully," he said. "I'm only saying this again because you've heard it exactly once." His golden eyes remained fixed on mine as he recited each name with deliberate clarity. 

I turned with him, refusing to let him leave my sight this time. My pulse still hadn't settled from the first throw, and I wasn't about to let him vanish behind me again.

"Paimon. Belial. Asmoday. Zagan. Bael. Beleth. Vine. Purson. Balam." He stopped in front of me once more. "Now you've heard them twice. There won't be a third."

The final word had barely left his lips before he moved.

My eyes darted wildly across the empty field as the crimson light painted long shadows across the grass. There. A shift of movement behind me.

"You must remember them."

His voice brushed against the back of my neck.

I reacted before I thought.

Dropping low, I rolled across the wet grass just as his hand swept through the space where my shoulder had been. Dew soaked straight through my uniform, the cold barely registering as I planted a hand against the earth and pushed myself upright in one smooth motion.

Don't stop.

Don't think.

Move.

The moment I found my footing, I drove a fist towards where I expected his face to be.

For the first time that night, something changed.

His eyebrows lifted.

Barely.

Just enough for me to realise I'd surprised him.

"Better." The single word carried the faintest hint of approval.

It lasted all of a heartbeat.

His hand caught my wrist before my punch could reach him.

Instead of throwing me like before, he stepped lightly to one side, guiding my arm across his body. My own momentum carried me forward, my balance disappearing beneath me so suddenly that I pitched towards the ground.

I braced for another painful collision.

It never came.

An arm slipped around my waist. The fall stopped as abruptly as it had begun, as I was yanked back, my back meeting something warm and solid instead of the ground. Before I could twist free, his other hand closed around my wrist, drawing it gently away from striking distance without forcing it.

I froze.

Not because I couldn't move, but because I suddenly realised how completely trapped I was.

His arm rested securely around my middle, holding me upright with what felt like almost no effort at all. I could feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing against my back, the warmth radiating through the thin fabric of my soaked uniform while the cool night breeze swept across the field around us. He wasn't squeezing. If anything, he was using the bare minimum of strength necessary to stop me escaping. Which somehow made it worse.

If he'd wanted to hurt me...

There wasn't a thing I could have done to stop him.

"Dead."

His voice was quieter this time, the single word spoken close enough that the warmth of his breath brushed against the edge of my ear.

Goosebumps raced the length of my arms.

"You keep trying to beat demons at their own game." His grip shifted just enough for me to feel how effortlessly he'd stolen my balance. "You won't."

I frowned. "I almost hit you."

"No." His answer came immediately. "You almost hit where I was."

His arm loosened slightly, giving me just enough freedom to test my strength.

I twisted.

Nothing.

I might as well have been trying to move a stone wall.

"You aren't strong enough to overpower us."

"I could get stronger."

"You should." His tone remained maddeningly calm. "It still won't be enough."

I opened my mouth to argue.

He continued before I had the chance. "You aren't faster."

He took a slow step, my body moving with him whether I wanted it to or not.

"You aren't heavier." Another step. "You don't have magic."

I clenched my jaw.

"You don't have claws." His fingers shifted around my wrist. "Or fangs."

"I have teeth," I muttered.

A faint breath that might have been amusement escaped him. "I noticed."

Heat crept into my face.

"So what?" I shot back. "I'm just supposed to give up?"

His arm finally tightened—not painfully, just enough to remind me exactly how little control I actually had.

"No." His golden eyes met mine. "You stop trying to fight like everyone else."

I blinked.

He released my wrist just enough that my arm dropped naturally back to my side, though the arm around my waist never moved.

"If someone is stronger..." His gaze never left mine. "Don't meet them head-on."

He shifted his footing again, forcing me to feel how easily he'd controlled the entire exchange.

"If they expect you to attack..." His voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Do something they don't expect."

I swallowed.

Silence settled between us.

For a strange moment, the lesson became more important than the fact I was still standing in his arms.

I could actually feel what he meant.

Every tiny shift of his weight.

Every adjustment that had stolen my balance before I'd even realised I'd lost it.

Heat spread across my face as I became suddenly, painfully aware of how close we were.

Close enough that I could hear his breathing.

Close enough that I could feel the steady beat of his heart through his chest against my back.

Close enough that, despite the cold air surrounding us, the warmth between us seemed to shut out the rest of the world.

Then another warmth surfaced in my memory.

Silver eyes.

Gentle hands.

A whisper against my ear.

Don't trust what anyone tells you.

The memory struck so suddenly that my chest tightened.

Rags.

What was I doing?

A strange guilt washed over me.

I barely knew the man from my dream. I didn't even know whether he'd been real. Yet standing here, letting someone else hold me...

It felt wrong.

As though I was betraying someone I couldn't remember.

My heart lurched.

"Let me go." The words came out sharper than I'd intended.

For a fraction of a second, Kian didn't move.

Then his arm vanished from around my waist. The sudden loss of support sent me stumbling several steps across the grass before I caught myself.

Silence settled over the field.

I turned back.

Kian still stood exactly where I'd left him.

One hand remained half-raised, as though he'd almost reached towards me again before deciding against it.

Something unreadable flickered across his face. It disappeared before I could make sense of it. His shoulders straightened. The faint softness that had crept into his expression during the lesson vanished beneath the familiar wall of indifference I'd grown used to seeing.

Without another word, he walked back to the place where we'd started.

By the time he turned to face me again, the distance between us felt greater than the empty field surrounding us.

He folded his arms behind his back. "Again."

The word landed flatly in the silence, as though the last few moments had never happened at all.