He doesn’t want me here. He is Blake Mephistopheles. They call him Phist. He’s hard, stubbled, leather-clad—and an asshole. And here is Hellespointe Academy, where black magic is a shortcut and the teachers turn a blind eye to spell-fueled cage fights. He thinks he can chase me off by making me uncomfortable. He wields his good looks and his charisma like a sharpened blade. A wide, thick, hard one. I’m affected. Any girl would be. Sure, he’s threatening. He’s huge, and he has all those gleaming muscles. And then there’s that sneer of his, that sexy sneer—But it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to kill him. He murdered my sister, and the only reason I came to this school was for revenge. One way or another, Blake Mephistopheles must die.

I’m undercover now. I’m going to take down every single person who had a hand in my sister’s death. That means helping the Resistance and that means maintaining my new position in the Black Circle, the most powerful group of witches and warlocks at Hellespointe Academy. And what does the Circle do? Mostly, we party. It’s an endless parade of drinking, smoking, drugs, and meaningless hook-ups. I’ve got to keep up my cover, and that means pretending to be into all that, and also pretending to be into Phist. We’re fake girlfriend and boyfriend, so we have to do a lot of touching. His arm around my shoulders, his hand curving possessively around my hip, his lips on mine, his tongue—And I hate all of that. Really, I do. I swear.

Black magic. I hate it, but it’s mesmerizing. It makes me feel the most powerful I’ve ever felt, like a dark goddess, and I can’t seem to fight it. It’s all I think about. It’s all I want. And that’s not good, because I need to be focusing on the conflict between the demonborn and occultists. Since Phist killed the potentate, we’re basically at war now. Everything’s in jeopardy, especially if anyone discovers that we’re on the side of Resistance. When my obsession with black magic goes too far, the worst thing happens. Phist is captured. Now, I can only focus on one thing. I have to save him.