Chapter 33. Grayson
Grayson
Breakfast is surprisingly low-key in a way that makes me suspicious. Naomi acts like everything is great. Meanwhile, I know Willow told her about seeing me and Eloise in the hallway. I look to Bas for an explanation, but he just shrugs.
Classes are fine. The weather is sunny for once and we eat lunch in the courtyard with our entire class.
But I don’t push the fake dating ruse any further.
Eloise and I just nod in agreement from across the lawn, and then I try to ignore the way Adrien leans too close to her while they eat.
And the way he makes her laugh. He’s not funny.
But in the last class of the day, Alchemic Theory, there’s a knock at the door. Before our professor can say come in, Damien opens it.
“Grayson Stone,” Damien says. “Your presence is required.” He doesn’t acknowledge our professor or apologize for the interruption. He’s the human equivalent to a caveman’s club.
I scent Eloise’s tension, but I don’t look in her direction. I just stand up from my desk and follow him into the hallway.
When the door closes behind me, I say, “To what do I owe the pleasure of you busting into my class?”
Damien doesn’t answer. He just walks in front of me in long strides, toward my uncle’s wing of the University.
“You’re in such a good mood today, Damien,” I say from behind him. “Is it the sunny weather?”
Again, silence.
He yanks open the door to my uncle’s office and stares at me until I enter. I swear he hates everything and everyone—which is why my uncle always chooses him for the worst kind of jobs.
“Grayson,” my uncle says with a practiced smile as he looks up from his desk.
I make my way to one of the armchairs across from him. “You rang?”
My uncle lifts an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be nearly as cheerful as you if my future as a Mage were tied to a Laborer.”
I don’t react. “You know me. I’ll find a way to spin this.”
“And how are you going to spin that you left her alone?” he says with a hint of danger.
“Sorry?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you should be,” he says like a slap.
“You left that girl to her own devices for more than an hour. I thought I made myself clear that you were to follow her every move. That if anything, and I mean anything, happens that puts the Key at risk, you will pay the price for it.”
My stomach drops. He knows about the lounge. Which means he’s either having me followed or someone in my class is reporting to him.
“Understood,” I say simply, knowing that if I try to explain I’ll only make things worse.
My uncle watches me carefully and I know he’s reading my emotions. After a long pause he says, “Update me.”
I nod, walking a line between truth and believability. “I originally thought that Eloise’s emotions were a factor, but I was wrong.”
“Maybe you have yet to find the right stressor,” he says, and my gaze meets his. I know him well enough to spot a threat even when it’s disguised as an offhanded comment.
“I was, however, correct that it had something to do with us being together,” I continue, letting him read the truth in those words.
He leans back in his chair. “What makes you think so?”
“A feeling,” I say, neglecting to mention the shimmer. “When we’re both doing magic, something shifts slightly. I plan to experiment with it.”
He nods without emotion, but I can scent his anticipatory im- patience. “And what do you plan to do in these experiments?”
“I was going to take her to our house, actually,” I say, merging all my plans in one smooth stroke. “I know you keep books on the Key in the library and it’ll give us time away from the University to cast without being bothered by our classmates.”
He steeples his fingers in front of his face. “Is that all?”
“Do you have a suggestion?” I ask, wondering if he wants this Key badly enough to give me intel.
“Seduce her,” he says without emotions, and my carefully curated facade cracks—I feel true shock.
“What?”
He leans forward. “You said you believe the Key only shows up when the two of you are together, did you not? If you’re correct, then I want you to test that theory by seducing her.
You’re already flirting with the girl,” he says, letting me know he’s been spying on me. “How difficult can it possibly be?”
It takes everything in me not to get mad. “I’m flirting with her as a pretense. It’s the only explanation our friends accept that doesn’t have them questioning why we’re suddenly spending time together. And Naomi is making it infinitely more difficult to maintain, by the way.”
My uncle smiles at that, the bastard. “Then it should be easy. Use that foundation to take it a step further. Make Eloise fall in love with you.”
I go perfectly still, knowing if I move one millimeter, I’ll tell him he’s a disgusting asshole.
“Do we have a problem?” he asks, and I have no choice. There is only one answer I can give.
“No, Sir.”
“Good. You’re dismissed,” he says like a king on a throne.
The schedule spell dismisses us from classes for the day and Eloise immediately falls in by my side.
I know she wants to ask me about getting pulled from class, but I’m dreading that conversation.
My instinct is to tell her the truth—every disgusting thing my uncle said.
But Eloise can’t hide her emotions in the best of circumstances.
If I tell her, she’s bound to be angry the moment she sees him, only further convincing him she’s a problem.
“Ready to go to my house?” I ask as we merge into the sea of students.
“Now?” she says, and I scent her shock. “You were serious about that?”
I shrug. “This way we avoid our friends. We’ll just have to come up with some excuse for not going to the party later.”
Her disappointment is so obvious that it throws me for a second. Is this about Adrien? I hold open the front door and we step into the fresh air.
“What was that Guardian about today?” she asks, changing the subject as we walk through the grass toward the giant tree garage.
“My uncle checking in,” I say simply.
She gives me a curious look.
“Let’s push pause on this conversation,” I say, nodding at our schoolmates as we weave through the cars.
She glances around her like she’s only now realizing we’re not alone.
I smirk. “For someone who lives near the wards, you’re way too trusting.”
She scoffs. “And for someone who lives a cushy life, you’re way too suspicious.”
“Maybe I just know how screwed up everything is,” I say, but she doesn’t get a chance to respond before I open the passenger door to my red Porsche.
She raises an eyebrow like a question. I raise one back and she gets in.
Which is when I remember what my uncle said—and screw him. Thankfully, Eloise doesn’t ask me about him again on the drive over. At first, she’s distracted by the garage and the way the wood spirals, and then she’s taken with the town itself.
I bring my car to a stop in front of our spired wooden gate, saying the spell to open it. We drive up to our tree-house Victorian mansion, complete with intricate towers, all perched in the air a good ten feet above the ground.
She swallows. “This is your home?”
“The Chancellor mostly stays in his wing in the University and my mom pops in and out, but otherwise, no one is here but the caretakers,” I say, because I haven’t thought of it as a home since Liam.
I park and get out to open Eloise’s door. But she beats me to it.
Outside the house is a Guardian—Jack. He nods to me and eyes Eloise, opening the front door for us.
We take the stairs to the first floor where they open into a circular foyer.
“This is…,” Eloise says, staring at the grand staircase and the tall arched doors leading in every direction. “Incredible.” The curiosity rolling off her makes me hate this place a little less.
“Wait until you see the library,” I say, opening a heavy door to our left.
On cue she gasps.
There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and windows, both of which are arched to make it look like a cathedral of books. There is an enormous fireplace, a reading nook, and a ceiling with a skylight shaped like a giant rose.
“If I had this in my house I’d never leave.” She runs her fingertips over the edge of a reading table and her movements are graceful. I find it hard not to watch.
But when she catches me staring, I swallow and look at the books.
“All the books in this library have something to do with the door and the Key,” I say, and her eyes widen.
“And you didn’t think to mention this sooner?” she says, surprised.
I shrug. “Like I said, I don’t think there’s much about the Key in books that can help us. Except for this section,” I say, indicating the shelf in front of me.
“Poetry?” she says like a question.
“One nineteenth-century poet to be exact,” I reply. “I didn’t use to think it had anything to do with the Key. I figured my uncle collected it because he liked the guy’s writing.”
“What changed?” she asks, the sun from the large window catching the freckles across her nose.
“A comment in one of the books you gave me. The ones I said were a stupid idea to read,” I say, and she grins. “It said the only true thing the scholar ever read about the Key was in poetry.”
“Huh, okay, and you think this is the poet he was referring to?” she asks.
“Why collect books about the Archive Room only to have a singular poetry section that’s unrelated?” I say.
The library door opens and Nora, a middle-aged Laborer, comes in carrying a tray of tea and cookies.
“Heard you come in and thought you might need an after-school snack,” Nora says as she bustles over to the reading table.
I flash her a smile. “Thanks, and if you could let Chef know we’ll be here for dinner that’d be great.”
“Will do,” Nora says and leaves the library, closing the door behind her.
I can scent Eloise’s wonder. “You get tea and homemade cookies brought to you on a tray?” she says. “My gran would be giddy over this. She’d curse you out while simultaneously sampling the goods.”
I’m suddenly aware that I know very little about her, and almost nothing about what her life was like before we came here. “What’s your house like?”
She looks startled by the question, but then she smiles.
“Cozy,” she says, taking a seat at the small table.
She kicks off her boots and tucks one foot under her.
“We live in a small stone cottage with two tiny bedrooms that Gran, Mom, my little sister, and I share. We basically live on top of each other. And my family is loud. Gran and my sister in particular. You should see game night. Maggie usually sleeps over and I swear they can hear us taunting each other two blocks away.” She laughs, pouring tea into the porcelain cups.
“But my favorite part about my house is the porch.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, enjoying hearing her talk.
“When I was a little girl,” she says, picking up a cookie, “I used to sit on it with my gran and grandad for hours. Gran would tell stories and Grandad would carve me little animals made of wood. He’d use magic to polish them, but he did the carving with a knife.
And what’s funny about you calling me Claws is that there was this little lion that was always my favorite.
He used to tell me stories about it.” She sighs like her heart is still heavy from missing him.
“You said you live by the edge of the wards?” I ask, trying to understand.
“We’re on the bordering block,” she says, lifting her tea to blow on it.
“Strict curfew rules. It used to bum me out when I was younger that my mom would call me in before sunset. I don’t want that for my little sister.
I just wish we didn’t have to always be so on guard for the Lawless.
That I could go to Maggie’s house after dinner and not worry about it, or go see a movie.
It’s actually why I got so mad at you last night. ” She looks up at me.
“I’m listening,” I say, and it must be the right thing to say because she gives me a small nod.
“I was mad that you lied to me,” she says.
“But in truth, I get it. Who wants to admit to having a phone when they’re forbidden on campus.
Only it was more than that. I was mad that you and your friends have cell phones that your uncle allows.
Something I wish more than anything I might have had to talk to Maggie on all those nights I couldn’t leave my house.
I didn’t even know a closed-circuit spell existed for tech, not that I’d be able to afford it if I did.
” She pauses. “I know it probably sounds dumb to you. But it’s why I want to be a Mage so badly.
I don’t want my family to be scared all the time.
And well, I just want a little bit of freedom. ”
Her words hit me like a baseball bat to the head. Suddenly her disappointment about the party takes on a whole new light. “The party at Adrien’s—”
She looks down at her cookie. “I know we can’t go,” she says, cutting me off. “I just wish…”
“We could?” I say for her.
She nods.
“Then we’re going,” I say definitively, because now I’m mad, too.
Pissed on her behalf and feeling like a total idiot for not considering how flippantly I spoke about my cell phone or any of my freedoms. I’m frankly floored that she has room for wonder over my stupid house.
If I were her, I’d be setting this place on fire.
Her eyes flit up to mine. “We don’t have time.”
“So?” I say, not caring. I want her to have this small victory.
“How can we justify it?” she asks.
“The same way we justify sleeping. Because there’s only so much you can do in a day. The mind can only absorb so much, and magic isn’t bottomless. We’ll read poetry. We’ll go to the party. And after, we’ll experiment with spells,” I say, and almost believe it’s logical. Almost.
“Yes,” she says, brightening. “I mean, that makes sense. We should do that.” She glances at the bookshelf enthusiastically. “Let’s get reading.”