AIYLA | Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

{11} The Questions Everyone's Asking

"I didn't take you for someone who hid from their problems," Ambrose said, jolting Aiyla from her thoughts.

His tall figure was leaning against the closest bookcase, looking down at her with something in his eyes that she couldn't name. She only knew that it made her stomach twist similar to how it had when she had first seen the punishments in the Ninth Circle, except it wasn't disgust.

She didn't linger on it. She had bigger problems.

"You don't know me all that well, then," she replied bitterly.

"I'd like to think that I do," he said, moving to sit down beside her, leaning against the back wall.

"I don't even know me that well," she shot back.

"Sometimes it's easier for people who aren't you to tell who you are. They're more removed from the situation," he reasoned.

"I'm a demon."

"That can't be your response to everything."

"I'm a demon," she repeated, her mouth twisting from a frown into a confident smirk.

"Oh, what have I started," he groaned, letting his head fall back against the wall.

"Think before you speak, Ambrose. Isn't that what you humans teach your offspring?"

"Sometimes," he admitted, his gaze shifting to rest on her.

She could feel everything he wasn't saying. It was, after all, his reason for being in the Academy's study so late at night. At least, she presumed so. Perhaps it was just what he did in the middle of the night.

"How's Sabrina?" she asked, vying for a way to at least temporarily shift the attention away from her.

"Surprisingly chirpy," he answered.

"Did you make sure you got the right one?"

Ambrose stiffened, his eyes going wide.

"You don't think-"

"No," she cut in, quick to reassure him, "They have no reason to want to swap. They made their choice, and they're both equally miserable with it."

Probably, she added silently.

Ambrose breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders sagging.

"She's also asking about what happened with you in the mines," he said, studying her for a reaction.

She did her best to make sure he didn't get one, but she couldn't help the way her hands twitched as though they instinctively went to curl into fists.

"What did you tell her?"

She also couldn't hide how strained her voice was.

"Nothing – for now. She's persistent; she's not going to drop it."

"I know," Aiyla responded, curling into herself, "But there's no answer to give her."

"Then let's find one," he suggested softly.

"Where? Here?" she scoffed, "Ambrose, as far as this library is concerned, I don't exist. I am a whole separate species of being. I might be just a demon, but there's angel blood in my veins, which makes me something else entirely. There's not going to be anything here on me, let alone on whatever's happening."

As her voice rose in volume, the lights in the library began to flicker before they went out entirely, one by one, until the only lights left were tiny, spluttering flames at the edges of the room. All of this went unnoticed by Aiyla, but it didn't to Ambrose.