Chapter 27
As Professor Dawnmere would tell us, with any good experiment, you need a baseline first. I write Peter Roydon across the faded pages of the compendium, to see what a normal entry in the Citadel’s records looks like.
Sure enough, many hits come up—Harker’s first-year roster for this year, his paper on syrabraxas for that summer program, a small-town magazine from a decade ago that describes his Iron Man–themed science fair win—but only one sticks out.
The Citadel’s list of all recorded hunters.
I try Sophia Valentine and Elliot Thompson as well.
Both times the book scrawls back their histories, their family members’ names—Sophia’s parents, Elliot’s many brothers—and directs me to that same Citadel record book located in the back of the room.
Then I try my own name. Vivienne Abbot.
Just the one result. First entered in August of this year, when I was admitted. Not a single mention of me before that date, and no family denoted, either.
I scrawl David Abbot.
No handwriting comes. I stare at the yellowed page, waiting.
Nothing. Not a single hit.
I try David Cadell.
The results are plentiful. His mother, Ada Cadell, who was a Harker alum too, and her father before her.
His years spent playing for the Marksmen.
His many trophies. His impressive feats in the coliseum—killing a hydra within two minutes, winning best precision archer in his class.
My heart begins to swell as an entire life unfolds before me.
The year he graduated. His marriage to an unknown woman.
The birth of his first daughter, and then his second…
And then nothing.
It’s as if he died then, right after my birth.
But he didn’t—
He lived another decade after that.
I flip through the pages over and over, looking for more, but they’re all blank. Devoid of—
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I swear my body jolts out of my skin, and I slam the book closed, pressing a hand to my heart to stall its thundering.
Reid’s standing in the archive doorway, freshly showered, in a clean shirt and loose jeans.
With his dreamy dimples and a surplus of healing injuries, he looks like an Abercrombie model who’s had to fight off a herd of salivating teen girls.
I wonder if Reid has ever actually sustained injuries protecting himself from rabid women.
Seems unlikely, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
“That’s what stalkers say.” I’m still a little breathless.
“No, it’s what people say when they’ve tracked down a thief.”
The blood drains from my face. I grab my things and walk over to him, key card in hand. “Oh yeah,” I say, faux casual. “You dropped this.”
Reid’s lips fuse into a grim line. “Do you understand I could expel you for this? You stole an instructor’s key card and broke into a restricted area.”
I make a face. “Huh. I thought I just got lost.”
He glares, those blue eyes swallowing up every inch of me. I’m sure he’s going to snap. But he only exhales a mighty breath and drags a hand down his face. “Get out of here, huntress.”
The change in his tone sends a jolt of surprise through me. “That’s it?”
“Consider us even. After my…behavior this morning.”
The memory of how he warned me away from him still hangs between us. I take a careful step backward, which he watches with something like distaste. “How’d you find me up here anyway?”
“Realized my card was gone after you left the coliseum. Tried every professor-only access spot on campus. This was number six.”
I don’t say anything, but I do note that he knew I had his key card all day and made no move to have me punished. My stomach does a somersault.
“You should leave, though. Before Lisette finds you. This is her domain.”
“Lisette oversees the archives?”
Reid nods. “She’s our resident historian. I help her with the artifacts sometimes.”
“You wear a lot of hats,” I tell him.
“And in this one, I tell you it’s time to get going. It’s almost eight.”
I didn’t even notice the candelabra flickering to life on its own. I take in Reid once more. He looks different in his street clothes, but I can’t put my finger on what’s changed. Maybe it was our last exchange or his leniency about my theft. “It’s weird seeing you out of your training gear.”
Reid’s brows lift. “Weird?”
“I just didn’t realize you owned jeans.”
“Like how you don’t own anything that isn’t black.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “If not black, then what?”
His eyes simmer. “You’d look nice in red.”
It’s by far the most complimentary thing he’s ever said to me.
I realize that somewhere between me getting high at the asylum and him nearly feasting on my soul this morning, the sharp edges of our interactions have been filed down a bit.
Replaced with something else that I’m not quite ready to name.
It appears he, too, has no desire to name it. He looks like he’s let something slip he shouldn’t have. Like his self-control is untethering. He’s my teacher and he’s imagining me looking nice for him. In red.
My heart thuds and I decide to conduct an experiment. “What would you say if I asked for your help with something?”
He opens his mouth, then seems to think better of it. “Is this a trap?”
“No.” I chew my lip. “Not yet at least.”
Reid’s eyes are glued to my mouth. I release my bottom lip.
“Go on,” he says.
“You’re a professor here.”
“Combat instructor.”
“Apologies, you’re a combat instructor here. Can you help me find a secret garden hidden somewhere in Old Campus?”
Reid doesn’t miss a beat. “No.”
My blood heats. He’s so difficult for no reason. But snapping at him would ruin the experiment data, so instead of telling him that there are more words in the English language, I go with “I’m serious.”
I can see the muscles tense in his jaw. He clears his throat. “The place you’re talking about…It’s not accessible to students.”
“And what a shame, I don’t have my handy-dandy key card anymore.”
“Huntress—”
“But you know where it is?”
“No,” he admits. “I don’t. And I’d be breaking about a dozen faculty rules bringing you there if I were to find out.”
“Would you, though?”
He frowns at me. “Why? What do you need?”
The moment of truth. Was Elliot right? Should I confide in a teacher? Do I trust Reid enough to tell him someone at his precious school is trying to brew a syrabraxa? No. Definitely not. “It’s for a research paper.”
“So ask your professor.”
“Okay,” I tell him, hoisting my book bag up my shoulder. “Will do.”
I can feel him eyeing me, but I don’t give him the chance to indulge his curiosity. I’m already hurrying out the archive doors when he calls out, “Wait up.”
I stall, lies already forming like a spider’s web in my mind. Ways to cover what I’ve asked for, rude barbs to get us off topic—
“What are you doing tonight?”
My eyes bulge. Whoever is manning the desk in my brain has fled.
Reid bites back a gorgeous quasi grin. “Do you want to join Field Training? Starts at eight. It’s a two-credit class.”
Oh. I’m a moron. “I thought I ‘wasn’t ready.’ ”
A moron who’s still bitter about not being picked weeks ago, it seems.
“You weren’t then. Now you are. See how that works?”
Moron flashes in neon lights inside my empty head.
I have dinner with James tonight. Lobster-killing dinner. And no desire to spend more time than I already have to with Reid’s evergreen scent and all-knowing eyes and the washboard abs I know are hiding under his Harker crewnecks.
Mostly, though, I like to hunt alone.
Which is why I’m shocked when I say, “Sure.”
See? Nobody manning the desk up there. Just those neon lights, I swear.
But the truth is, while a hunter loves to hunt, an aeon needs to hunt.
And like most prowling predators, we have egos that need stroking.
I prefer to hunt alone, but I also crave the experiences I used to have with my dad.
The praise one gets from hunting with a pride.
Returning from battle, dinner proudly clenched between teeth dripping blood. Disgusting, really.
“Meet us at the gateway under the rotunda in fifteen? Bring your daggers.”
“Don’t go anywhere without them.”
Reid’s eyes simmer. “Good girl.”
To my utter horror, I flush hot everywhere.
He’s already gone when I get my phone out to text James. Sorry, something came up at work. Going to be stuck here late. Rain check?
At this rate, no amount of rain in Astera could make up for all the times I’ve let my boyfriend down.