Chapter 29
“I’m so so so,” Honey said, clinging to my arm as we sat at breakfast the next morning, “so so so so sorry for not answering my phone.”
“It’s fine,” I said dully, not pushing her off but not encouraging her either. I picked up my toast and bit into it, the sweetness of Nutella bursting across my tongue. Death brought me breakfast as he did every morning, food miraculously waiting for me when I woke up. It was always fresh and with a lime green tulip sitting beside it, but I needed comfort food. Hence Nutella toast, Pop-Tarts, and pancakes drizzled in honey and cream.
“It’s not fine,” she said fiercely, a furrow between her blonde brows. “You’re my best friend and you needed me. In the Best Friend Code, section thirteen verse two, it explicitly states besties must always answer the phone when their bestie is in need.”
“You just made that up,” I said, humour entering my voice. I met her eyes, my heart crushed at the misery and apology there, and forgave her on the spot. “And you can’t help not answering, Honey.”
She made a throaty sound, scowling into her cereal. “I fell asleep and slept through five texts and three calls. Who does that?”
“People cursed to be a cat that needs eighteen hours of sleep a day,” I pointed out quietly, glancing up when a shadow fell over the table. My entire body buzzed, and I tensed all over, ready to fight or run. But it was just a pale-haired, white-faced girl floating past us. Literally floating.
I stared, my heart quickening.
Honey made a soft sound.
“Yeah, I’m a ghost,” the girl lamented and floated on, out the door. She had nothing in her hands, no bowl of granola or plate of avocado toast. I had to wonder if she could even eat, or if she’d come here to mourn her loss of food.
“First a sexy nurse and now a ghost,” Honey murmured, propping her chin on her hand and stifling a yawn despite just waking up. “This is so fucked up.”
I was trying very hard not to look across the room to where a black girl with a very low-cut shirt was leaning over the table, tending to the world’s most pathetic papercut. She kept cooing over the ‘injured’ guy and promising to make it all better, while he blatantly stared down her shirt. He was one of the fuckboys who ogled my heaving bosom at the party, dressed as a werewolf.
“Any progress with the library search?” I asked Honey. She was supposed to check out a stack of books for us to read—she’d found a promising one about the violent history of Ford.
“Shit,” she hissed, rubbing her eyes. “I was supposed to check them out yesterday but I fell asleep and forgot.”
“It’s fine,” I said even though it wasn’t, and it felt like I’d lost my best friend. It wasn’t Honey’s fault she was acting differently, and it wasn’t her fault she was cursed to be a cat forever. Unless we could break the curse. “I’ll come with you later. I was the one who bailed on you anyway.”
Because the dark-haired, blue-eyed psycho accosted me, and I ran home to cry and lock myself away.
Honey must have been thinking along the same lines because she lowered her voice and hissed—actually hissed— “If I find out who hurt you, I’ll gouge his eyes out and claw his throat.”
I blinked. “I think the feline Honey is a little violent.”
She shrugged, unapologetic. “I’m protective of my friends. Speaking of friends, plural, where the fuck is Byron?”
“Probably with his new boyfriend,” I said, a real smile crossing my face for the first time since Death left me with a kiss and a promise to return later.
“He needs to introduce us,” Honey said, a little sulky. “The people want to know what this new boyfriend is like.”
The people being Honey.
“Extremely shy,” I murmured, finishing my toast and reaching for my Pop-Tart, barely holding back a groan at the warm strawberry filling.1 “My guess is he’s socially anxious and terrified of new people.”
“Well, so are you, and you do okay!” Honey complained.
“Thanks,” I said, my brow knotting, “I think.”
“Oh!” she said suddenly, digging through her cardigan pocket. “I got you this as an apology gift.”
She held out a yellow pen balanced on both her hands like she was bestowing me with a sword, and I gave her a strange look but accepted the apology gift—and grinned when I saw it was covered in mallards.
“Okay, you’re forgiven,” I said, and laughed when she groaned and splayed across the table, barely avoiding knocking over her cereal bowl.
“Thank fuck for that. I knew the duck pen would work.”
“Ducks will always earn my forgiveness,” I agreed, tucking it into my pocket and startling when my alarm went off on my phone. “Fuck, ten minutes until my first lecture. I better go get my bag. Thank you for the pen.” I dragged her into a hug when she stood too, and said, “We’re good, Honey, don’t worry. I still love you.”
She sagged. “I still love you, too, Cat. Even if you haven’t told me anything about your three hot husbands today.”
“Later,” I promised. And god, did I have a lot to tell her.
I ran upstairs, searching every person I passed for Alastor Carmichael, boneless with relief when I didn’t run across him. That was one thing I hadn’t worked out how to tell Honey yet. She was enamoured with him, and I needed to warn her what kind of person he was, but how did you tell your bestie her crush had thrown you up against a mausoleum and threatened you?
Coat thrown on and bag hanging over my shoulder, I locked my door and ran back downstairs, giving a wide berth to a girl with voluminous straw-coloured hair and freckles who cast a spell in the hallway. She was currently making a plant pot float, and I wasn’t keen to get levitated next.
Getting out of Lawrence Hall unscathed was like a slalom course, moving around cursed student after cursed student, but I made it out—and skidded back before I could step on the paw of the tiny grey tabby kitten limping across the path.
“Oh,” I breathed, kneeling, my heart skipping when I realised what I’d thought were stripes were actually streaks of blood. “Oh no, baby,” I cooed, very carefully scooping up the kitten and cradling it to my chest. I meant to take it to the laboratory building where I knew Professor Palmerston—part time teacher, part time surgeon—would be, but the second I held the kitten to my chest, a deep clang went through my soul.
It throbbed like a sick heartbeat, like the pulse of magic I felt when Nightmare killed, and I jolted forward a step before I could process the intention. I glanced down and cried out when I saw my hands were empty.
There was never a kitten. Nightmare had set a trap, and I’d walked directly into it.