Strength of Desire (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #2)

10. Cory

10

CORY

T he snow continued to fall after Combat, silent and serene, and by the time dinner was over, four inches had accumulated, with more forecast overnight.

“First signs of spring, huh?” I said as we climbed the stairs up from the refectory. I could see the snow falling outside in the moonlight through a window.

“Oh, come on,” Felix said. “It’s only twenty-two degrees out today. That’s practically balmy for this time of year. By Imbolc next week, it could even reach thirty-two!”

Ash snorted. “People in the upper Midwest are insane. I’ve seen Kaveh Abedi wear shorts here. In March . Completely nuts.

“Kaveh’s a werewolf,” Felix said. “They run hot.”

Ash laughed and wiggled his eyebrows. “Yeah they do.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“But that’s where it lives,” Ash protested. “You wouldn’t want it to be homeless, would you?”

“You could try putting it back in your skull for once, and actually use it.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “Did you know I also saw Kaveh…”

But I’d stopped listening, because we’d made it to the second floor, and we were just passing by the corridor that would take me back to the first library. I still wanted to pick up the book I’d found earlier that afternoon, without my friends peering over my shoulder.

I didn’t realize Ash had stopped talking until Felix said, “You okay, Cory?”

The two of them were looking at me as I stared down the other hallway.

“Yeah,” I said, making myself laugh lightly. “I just realized I forgot my notebook in the library this afternoon.”

“Get it tomorrow,” Ash said.

But that wouldn’t work. I needed some time in the library on my own, without anyone else keeping too close an eye on me.

“No, I want to get some work done tonight,” I said. “And the sooner I get it done, the sooner I can stop worrying about it.”

Ash gave Felix a flat look. “This is your doing, you know.”

“I made Cory forget his notebook?”

“No, you made him care about schoolwork.” Ash wrinkled his nose. “You took a perfectly good person and turned him into a nerd, just by forced proximity.”

“You caught me. I can’t deny it. I’ve committed the inimical sin of hoping that at least one of my friends won’t fail out of here.”

“Unforgivable.”

“I’ll just go grab it now,” I said. “You guys go on. I’ll see you at breakfast in the morning.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Ash said.

I frowned. “Why?” I really wanted to get that book.

“Because you’ll be seeing us now, dummy. Come on.”

Felix’s brow furrowed. “You’re going to accompany him to the library? Voluntarily?”

“Aren’t you?” Ash asked.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then obviously I have to come too. Lord knows what you two bookworms would get up to, left to your own devices. You’d probably fall asleep there.”

But this was not part of the plan. If they came to the library with me, they’d realize pretty fast that I hadn’t left anything there at all. And I didn’t want them to see me check out that book. It was too embarrassing.

“You’re such a martyr,” Felix told Ash. “How ever do you put up with us?”

Ash sighed dramatically. “I ask myself that all the time.”

“Must be hard to date someone so perfect,” I said to Felix, hoping maybe I could guide them away from accompanying me by convincing them they’d prefer some alone time instead.

“What?” Felix gave me a confused look.

“You know, hard for your self-esteem to be in love with…” I trailed off, realizing they were both staring at me now, looking horrified.

“You think…Felix and I are…dating?” Ash said, investing the last word with heavy scorn.

I just stood there with my mouth open, rapidly doing some mental recalculation. They’d never said they were dating, but with the way they acted, I’d just sort of assumed.

“You’re always bickering like an old couple,” I said. “And Ash is so touchy-feely with you. And you both made it clear you weren’t interested in me, my first day here.”

I felt like an idiot.

“We bicker because Felix is pedantic and I think I’m always right,” Ash said. “I mean, I am always right, but some poor, benighted souls don’t seem to realize it.” He laughed. “And just because we’re not into you doesn’t mean we’re into each other.”

“Yeah,” Felix said, still looking aghast. “Eww.”

“Hey,” Ash said sharply. “Rude.”

“ I’m rude?” Felix said. “You just looked like you were going to vomit a second ago, contemplating the idea of dating me.”

“Well yeah, because you’re my friend.”

“But I’m not allowed to feel the same way?”

“I mean, in theory, yes, with a regular friend. Like Cory. But I’m me.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m gorgeous, charming, funny, smart, loyal, energetic, and great in bed, with an insouciant, devil-may-care attitude to boot. I’m a catch. Anyone would be lucky to date me.”

“So Cory and I should both be fawning over you all the time?”

“Precisely.” Ash grinned. “You know, I’ve been meaning to talk to you guys about that. You don’t bat your eyelashes at me nearly enough.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Felix said drily.

“See that you do.” Ash smiled impishly. “Now, let’s go get Cory’s notebook before he makes another embarrassing social faux pas.”

He linked his arm through mine and dragged me towards the library, Felix following behind with a laugh and a sigh.

So much for my brilliant plan. Now we were going to make a trip all the way there, just for me to pretend to realize that I’d had my notebook in my bag all along. And I’d still have to come back for the book another time. Wonderful.

Lots of students used the first library for studying, even upperclassmen. The first three rooms were sprawling, with comfy chairs and tables for studying scattered among the shelves. One room even had a fireplace. It was very cozy.

But the crowds got thinner the further back you went in the library, as the seating got sparser. By the time we reached the area we’d been standing in earlier, it was like we were in a different world entirely. If the snow softened sounds, this end of the library seemed to swallow them entirely.

Golden globes in the air made pools of light in the otherwise shadowy caverns between the bookcases. As we walked along the rows, I had the strongest sense that I was walking through a diorama, that Felix, Ash, and I were tiny dolls, moving through a miniature world, looked down upon by some giant god. I felt like I was a statue in a museum, scuttling around in the dark after the visitors were gone.

There was no need to be quiet, really. No one else was back here, so it wasn’t like we were disturbing someone’s studies. But this end of the library seemed to demand silence, so I padded softly to the row where I’d been standing earlier, preparing my look of surprise for when my notebook was nowhere to be seen.

That was when I heard the voices. Hushed voices, but definitely there. Like some other little group was trying to be quiet just like we were. The voices were coming from the very back of the room, where row upon row of wide, flat drawers contained maps of every area of the globe, and probably some places that weren’t even on the globe.

“You’re not going to find anything,” hissed one of the voices. It was impossible to tell who it belonged to, or even the voice’s gender, given the whisper.

“How about we check before you make that decision?” another one shot back.

“I’m just saying, if it were as easy as looking it up in a book, people would have found it by now,” said the first voice.

“It’s not a book, it’s maps. And I’m just saying, my brother swore there was a code in three of them that let you triangulate.”

“Did your brother ever find the spring?” hissed the first voice again. It was met with silence. After a moment, that speaker said, “My point exactly. He didn’t even tell you which maps to check.”

“Which is why we’re here checking all of them,” the second voice snapped, and it was loud enough that I could finally tell it belonged to a guy. “If you don’t want to be here, leave. No one said you had to come.”

“Just give me the map,” said the first voice, its tones hushed but annoyed.

I’d been inching forward this whole time, drawn to the conversation without knowing why. Something in the air, or the tone of those whispers, told me to move quietly, and Ash and Felix seemed to have picked up on it too. They followed my steps as I drew up to the last row of bookcases that separated us from the speakers.

I could hear the sound of shuffling papers just around the corner. Someone bumped into the huge table that stood back there, making a soft crash. A pencil rolled, then hit the floor, and the sound seemed to fill the room. Burning with curiosity, I tilted my head just a little further around the corner, and froze.

Sean, Rekha, and Tim were clustered around the maps table—the very last people I’d expect to see doing extra evening research in the library. Not that they were stupid—well, not Rekha, anyway—but she made a big show of already knowing everything there was to know and being bored in our classes. Sean and Tim had never seemed interested in anything that wasn’t related to violence.

They were all standing at different points around the table, which was covered with spread-out maps. Rekha was staring at the map in front of her with disdain, like it had personally offended her. Tim was scratching his ear and looking at his map with disinterest. But Sean was poring over his, his eyes scanning the paper, fingers running back and forth across it.

“Here!” he said suddenly.

Rekha and Tim’s heads snapped up. I jumped, then steadied myself on the bookshelf I was standing behind. It shuddered slightly, but the three around the table didn’t seem to notice.

“This could be it,” Sean said, pointing at something I couldn’t see on the map in front of him. He looked over at Rekha. “The third mound. It’s a little east of yours, I think, and south-east of the mound by the lake.”

Rekha moved around the table, her jeans swishing softly, and shouldered Sean out of the way, peering down at the map herself. She frowned. “I think you’re reaching.”

“It’s a mound,” Sean said stoutly. “It’s clearly marked.”

“I think it might just be a smudge,” Rekha said. “And it doesn’t have any of the other two spots marked.”

“It’s not supposed to,” Sean said. “The whole point is it’s supposed to be hidden.”

What were they talking about? What was supposed to be hidden?

“We haven’t seen the spring on any of these maps,” Rekha said. “I don’t think it actually exists.”

The spring? I couldn’t help myself. I slid my foot forward, trying to see what they were arguing about on the map.

“It’s not supposed to be on the maps,” Sean said. “If it only appears one night a year—”

“Which might not even be the night you’re planning on looking, astrologically speaking.”

I slid a little closer.

“—then it wouldn’t be marked anywhere permanently,” Sean finished. “And it has to be the right night, because Vesperwood always celebrates Imbolc on the same day. And people have found the spring before.”

“People say they’ve found the spring before,” Rekha countered. “We still don’t have any proof.”

I slid another step forward and a chime went off, sounding through this end of the library like a tiny bell. Sean, Rekha, and Tim all looked up and saw me, before I could dart back around my bookcase. Tim’s hands curled into fists, and Sean shifted into his pre-fight stance, one I recognized all too well from Combat.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rekha demanded, eyeing me suspiciously.

I flushed, embarrassed to have been caught. Embarrassed to have been listening at all, let alone in secret. But I hadn’t done anything wrong, had I? It’s not like they were working on anything top-secret or important—not three freshmen, only one of whom was a witch.

“Getting a notebook,” I said, making myself shrug nonchalantly. I didn’t feel nonchalant, but maybe I could fake it. “I left one here earlier today.”

She looked at my hands, which were clearly empty. “Right. And what part of getting your notebook requires you and your friends to spy on people?”

I frowned, then realized Ash and Felix had stepped up behind me.

“We weren’t spying,” I said, still trying—and failing—for coolness. “I was just curious what you guys were—”

“It doesn’t concern you,” Rekha said, at the same time that Tim snapped, “Nothing.”

Sean just looked at Rekha. “I thought you were going to ward us.”

“I did ,” she said. “I told you I wasn’t strong enough to cloak us, just to let us know if someone came close”

“And what good was that, if you couldn’t even warn us until someone was on top of us?”

I realized, suddenly, what that chime had been. I must have triggered it as I kept inching forward. Dammit. Why couldn’t I have held back?

“And I suppose you could have done better?” Rekha said sweetly, though there was a hint of poison in her voice.

Sean sighed. “Whatever. We were done here anyway.”

“Don’t let us stop you,” Ash said brightly. “We wouldn’t dream of interrupting your skullduggery.”

Rekha began collecting the maps, sliding them on top of each other. Then she turned to a cabinet behind her with many long, thin drawers, and pulled one out. There were more maps inside it.

“Just leave them,” Sean told her.

Rekha glared at him. “You’re the one who insisted we had to do this at night, when no one else was around. Now you suddenly don’t care? You want to leave the maps out for these idiots to rifle through?”

She shoved the maps inside, sliding each one into a different place in the stack in the drawer.

“They don’t know what they’re looking for,” Sean said, rolling his shoulders out with a smile. “They couldn’t do anything with the maps if they tried.”

“A spring,” I said, annoyed. I didn’t want to admit how long I’d been listening, but Sean’s tone irked me. “Near a mound or something. It’s not on any of the maps, but you were trying to find it by putting together information from three of them.”

“Very good, Cory,” Sean said, his voice patronizing. “And why, pray tell, were we looking for it?”

About that, I had no idea. I shrugged again, still hoping I was coming off more relaxed than I felt.

Sean turned to Rekha and spread his hands out. “I rest my case. Let’s go.”

“The Spring of Irylis,” Felix said softly. “You’re looking for the Spring of Irylis, which appears on Vesperwood’s grounds on the evening of Imbolc, surrounded by mellora flowers. Take a flower from the glade before it disappears at dawn, and it will grant you one wish. Take water from the spring and it will heal even mortal wounds. So they say.”

I turned to stare at him.

“Ohh,” Ash said, recognition clear in his voice. He nodded to himself. Whatever the spring was, he’d at least heard of it before. He looked at Felix. “Is any of that true?”

It was Felix’s turn to shrug. “It’s more of a myth than anything else. People who claim to know how to find it always seem to have gotten the information from someone who got it from someone else. Some people say it moves to a different location each year. But that doesn’t stop students from going out to look for it every year anyway.”

“It moves?” I said, feeling my eyes widen. I should probably have gotten used to things like magical disappearing springs by now, but I still hadn’t.

“If it exists,” Felix said, sounding doubtful. “Myself, I think it’s an urban legend. How likely are flowers in February? In northern Wisconsin?”

“See?” Sean turned to Rekha. “They’re not going to look for it.” He laughed. “Even if they thought it was real, none of them would dream of breaking a school rule.”

I frowned. “Why would we be breaking a rule?”

“You have to hunt for it at night,” Ash said.

“Outside,” Felix added.

“Oh.”

Since the moraghin attack, underclassmen were discouraged from roaming the grounds by themselves during the day. The faculty definitely wouldn’t want us going out at night. And the dean had said Imbolc would be celebrated indoors this year. Somehow, I didn’t think searching for a magical spring was the kind of thing he would make an exception for.

“ Oh ,” Sean said, his tone mocking. He stepped forward, looking me up and down. His voice dropped low. “You wouldn’t do it even if you were allowed. Out in the woods at night? All alone? No one to rescue you? You wouldn’t last an hour. You’re too weak.”

“I am not,” I said, knowing how childish I sounded, but unable to help it.

“Actions speak louder than words, Cory,” Sean said. “And your actions…well, let’s just say that from what I’ve seen so far, I think you’d be down on your knees within a minute, just begging for someone to tell you what to do.”

It was such obvious bait that I knew I shouldn’t rise to it. I was sick with myself for what I’d done with Sean. What my body had wanted. I knew he was goading me, and I knew better than to respond.

“Think what you like,” I spat. “We’ll see who’s right, the morning after, when I’ve found the spring and you haven’t.”

Sean laughed. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m serious. If you’re hunting, so am I.”

“You don’t have the balls.”

“I’ve got what I need,” I said, refusing to back down now that I’d committed myself.

Sean’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t even know what to look for.”

“According to Felix, neither do you. So it’s an even match.”

I was starting to shake, ever so slightly, with tension and nerves and the anxiety I always got from confronting people. I wasn’t very good at it, but I’d be damned if I let Sean beat me at this.

“Um, Cory,” Felix said softly. I felt his hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off.

I didn’t need him or anyone else to tell me I was being stupid. I knew I was being stupid, but I also knew I was sick of Sean’s little digs and comments, sick of the way he leered at me, and I was going to prove to him, once and for all, that I wasn’t the weakling he thought.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Sean said, cocking his head to the side.

“Completely.”

He laughed again. “Easy for you to say now. But in another week, when you have to break the rules? Leave the manor and head out alone? That’s when it really counts.”

I made myself smile. “I’ll see you then.”

As last words went, those were pretty dumb. I’d see Sean tomorrow at breakfast. But it was the best I could do on short notice.

Sean looked at me for a long moment, then glanced over his shoulder at Rekha and Tim. “Come on. We got what we needed.”

Ash and Felix stood to one side of the aisle, with me on the other, as the three of them passed between us. Sean made sure his shoulder brushed against me anyway. Rekha glared at everyone, Sean and Tim included. Tim just lumbered through, looking at no one.

The three of us watched them in silence as they made their way down the aisle, then turned a corner on their way to the door.

As soon as they were out of sight, Ash turned to me. “Seriously?”

“What?” I said.

“Are you seriously planning on hunting for this spring, just because you let Sean goad you?”

“It’s not just because of that,” I protested.

“Oh, really.” Ash folded his arms and looked at me. “Is this the part where you tell us you’ve been dreaming of finding the Spring of Irylis since you were a child?”

“No.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. But I just—” I broke off, trying to figure out how to word it. “I’m just sick of everyone here thinking I’m incompetent.”

“Who thinks that?” Ash said. “We don’t think that. Min and Erika and Keelan don’t think that.”

“Maybe. But Sean and his friends? Everyone else in our class, who sees how useless I am with magic? How much I suck at combat? Even our professors think I’m clueless.”

“They’re supposed to think you’re clueless,” Felix objected. “They think all of us are. That’s why we’re students.”

“No one thinks you’re clueless,” I told him, a little bit of heat in my voice. Felix frowned, but he didn’t contradict me, which only annoyed me more.

“Romero doesn’t think you’re useless,” Ash said. “He wouldn’t be giving you private lessons if he thought that.”

I let that slide. I still hadn’t told them I was an incubus, and if I had , it would have only underscored my point, because I was terrible at being an incubus too.

“I just want to do something on my own,” I said, frustration building. “Something to prove that I’m not a pathetic goody-two-shoes who’s completely unequipped for this world.”

And something to prove to Sean that he can’t bully me into submission .

“And this is what you choose?” Ash said. "Can’t you just do an extra credit assignment, or put scorpions in Sean’s bed or something? There’s no guarantee you’re going to find anything if you go hunting for the spring.”

“Or that there’s anything to find,” Felix put in. “Rekha was correct to point out the date discrepancy. Vesperwood celebrates Imbolc on February first, but astrologically, the true midpoint between Yule and Ostara is closer to February fourth. Even if the spring exists, it might only appear three days after everyone searches for it.”

“I don’t care if I find it,” I protested. “I just want to try. I want to prove—” I broke off and took a deep breath. “I just want to prove to myself that I’m not a total failure, okay? Sean’s annoying, yeah. And I’d love to show him up. But this isn’t about him. It’s about me.”

Ash sighed. “Do you really, truly have your heart set on this? Knowing full well that Felix and I would be happy to stay in with you all night and get drunk and shower you with compliments, in an attempt to raise your self-esteem without freezing your ass off?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

“Ugh,” he groaned.

“What?” I said. “It doesn’t affect you.”

“Of course it does. If you’re going to be stupid enough to leave the manor at night and go look for a magical, probably-non-existent spring, then you know Felix and I are going to be stupid enough to accompany you.”

“I object to that,” Felix said. Ash shot him a withering look. “Not about coming with you. I want it on record that I think this is rash, but yes, I’ll come too. I just don’t think it makes us stupid.”

“It doesn’t?” Ash said, arching an eyebrow.

“It makes us Cory’s friends.” He smiled at me, and it warmed me to my core.

“Thanks, guys,” I said.

Ash rolled his eyes. “What are friends for?”