His eyes went so round I could see the whites all the way around them. He scrambled to right himself, huddling in his chair. “Wh … what do you want from me?”

I leaned across the desk, my eyes blazing. “I want you to right the wrong you did to Jemma Bliss.”

“I … I cannot … I will lose my position as professor!”

My nostrils flared. “I care nought for your position! I care for the woman you both screwed over. I care that she has a chance to make the life she dreams of, and that requires her to complete her university studies!”

Gregory blinked. Blinked again. “You … you care for that silly girl?”

I slapped my hands on the desk with such force it cracked. “That ‘silly girl’ deserves the opportunities you denied her. Unlike this greasy, talentless little waste of space,” I gestured towards Chad, who was hunched miserably against the wall, “she worked hard, and creatively, and would have been qualified to go on to bigger and better things, were it not for you!”

“But h-he was the one who stole her work!” he protested weakly.

I rolled my eyes. “And you, their professor, would have known it was not his work, and you allowed him to submit it anyway. And then you accused her of stealing his work! And you expelled her from your class, ensuring she could never finish her studies!” Frustration rumbled in the back of my throat. “Take responsibility for your own actions, you pathetic little man!”

Finally, Gregory’s eyebrows dropped, defeat in every line of his bloated form. “Yes. Alright. It was … a misjudgement, on my part.”

A misjudgement? A fucking misjudgement?

“Reap him, Boss. He doesn’t deserve to get off scot-free!” Beezle hissed.

He deserved much worse than a simple reaping, but I held back. My biggest concern was getting Jemma what she was owed from all of this, and I needed this sad little excuse for a human to make that happen. “And what do you plan to do about it?” I rasped.

Gregory tugged at his tie, his face pallid. “I can … I’ll pull some strings, have her reinstated, all her previous credits honoured. She will need to come back to complete my class, but I can … she will be given preferential treatment⁠—”

“She will be treated fairly, the same way all your students should be treated!” I warned darkly. “She does not need your charity to excel. She can do that all on her own.”

Gregory’s bottom lip wobbled precariously. “You … you really do care about her, don’t you?”

Something in my chest cracked wide open at his words. Devils don’t cry. Devils don’t cry.