Chapter 57
Aurelia
The next morning, Minnie meets me for breakfast in the dining hall. For the first time, I notice a strain in her eyes, her nimpin Gertie jittery on her shoulder. She just shakes her head. “We have things to talk about, but I just saw this.” She slides the morning newspaper under my nose.
MACE NAGA MAKES STRIDES WHERE NONE HAVE BEFORE
My stomach roils as I stare at the blow-up front-page photo of the man who’d raised me, waving at the crowd, a benevolent smile moulded to his face like plasticine.
“That was a press conference,” Minnie says quietly. “He’s giving a speech tonight at one of the blended universities in the city.”
“He’s recruiting,” Xander says darkly, leaning into me to read it.
“The generals will be there,” Minnie says pointedly. “The younger ones go around getting emails and handing out meet-up details.”
“Recruiting for what?” Stacey whispers.
Xander, Minnie and I remain quiet because it hurts to say it out loud.
But I know I need to see this for myself.
The warehouse last night…the house visits.
I need more from Ghoul. He’s breadcrumbing information in my dreams, but giving me zero in waking life.
I understand that he can’t do anything against his blood oath, so I need to be the one doing something.
Maybe I could weasel my way into one of these meetings and see exactly what they’re up to.
There have been no consequences for our destruction of the Crocodylus property or my murder of the crime lord.
The only thing that explains this is that my father is preoccupied with other things.
Things I need to know about immediately.
I want to maintain the image that I’m perfectly fine.
Xander is suspicious of me, and Savage has been particularly exuberant, so I make a great show of actually going to classes for once.
No one actually expected me to attend them since I came back from Drakos Estate, but Lyle was right—having a sort of routine may balance my jitteriness while I wait for night to come.
Minnie, Sabrina, and Stacey make an effort to come as well, and it makes Theresa’s eyes light up to see us all, Eugene and the nimpins included, waltz in and take our seats like we used to.
Our first class in this room feels like so long ago.
Unfortunately for me, the topic of the day is ‘Building Trusting Relationships with Mates.’ I squint at the board as if I’m concentrating, but honestly, I don’t know what the fuck this means. How do you build trust when your mate has a blood oath to be your sworn enemy?
“Try to find some positives,” Theresa says, waving her whiteboard marker and glancing at me and Stacey. “There are always positives in our relationships with our mates, just sometimes you have to look a little harder.”
To my surprise, Savage raises his hand. “I support my regina in everything she does. Even if it’s not very smart.”
I gape at him. “Savage!”
He gapes back in surprise. “What did I say?”
Minnie snorts. “Lia is highly intelligent! Nothing she does is ‘not smart!’”
“Hear, hear,” Sabrina says in a low voice. “Take it back, Savage.”
“All I meant,” Savage says slowly, like he’s explaining something to a bunch of idiots, “is that I’ll do anything for her. Why is that bad?”
“Savage is trying to describe loyalty,” Xander says crisply.
Theresa looks like she’s about to quit teaching. “Well, that I can write down on the board.”
“What about…” Stacey screws up her face. “If your mate has to be loyal to someone else other than you?”
“Mates come first,” Savage says dismissively.
“Nothing else matters. Anyone who says otherwise should have their head eaten.” His eyes pointedly move in the direction of the school fence, where Katerina’s head still sits, even though some of the teachers wrote Lyle emails about it.
We’re not taking it down anytime soon. The native birds are still working their way through her soft tissue.
I watch Stacey sink into her seat, and something like a searing iron strikes my insides. “Sometimes there are conflicts, right? That’s life. That happens.”
“These are difficult conversations that are important,” Theresa says calmly. “Open conversations between mates are the only way forward. Honesty without judgement.”
Xander sighs next to me and says into my head.
“Don’t try to justify Ghoul’s actions. I don’t even care what memories he’s showing you.
He wants you to feel sorry for him. He will betray you.
” I don’t reply to my dragon, whose eyes flash when he glances at me.
He watches me closely for the rest of our classes, but of course I quit the day early and head back to our dorm to take a nap.
That evening, I duck out earlier than usual.
At this stage, I don’t even care if anyone sees where I’m going.
I don’t need permission from them to see one of my mates.
The sunset washes the world in red, and as I ricochet across the sky, it makes it look like the world is spilling blood.
Stacey was able to tell me which universities were on the meeting list, and one of them is south of the city: a gigantic campus with sprawling buildings and concrete pathways.
I shift into my eagle form as I come upon it, finding the gathering crowd immediately.
This time, I’m prepared enough to bring a set of clothes, and it takes me a minute to change inside the ladies’ toilets and come out like I’m any other student, shouldering Savage’s small backpack.
It had been my dream once to leave my bungalow and hide away in a blended university where my mates would never find me.
The fact that I’m now in the centre of one, looking for a mate, feels cathartic.
I had planned to take my blue beetle Maisy, all my belongings, and flee here, pretending to be an eagle and learning to be a healer-nurse or doctor.
I was good at healing. Now it seems like most of the time I’m doing the exact opposite.
How times change. How I’ve changed. The person I am now looks around at the tall, clean buildings of this college with a soft smile, knowing we’ve outgrown this dream.
It makes me equal parts happy and sad. How little I thought of my life.
My skills. How much more I am now. I hope my mother is proud of me.
Feeling a little mellow, I hang around the back of the crowd gathering at a quadrangle area with a concrete platform made for such events.
There’s a lectern standing ready and a couple of serpents with professional video equipment and someone with a livestream set up.
They’re people I don’t recognise, and it makes my heart beat a little slower for the sake of my spying.
More people join us, and I smell barbecue somewhere nearby.
Pretty soon, I’m locked in with people excitedly pressing in behind me, and the loud buzz of their combined voices winds through the air.
I adjust the strap of my backpack, but when I sense his presence approaching, a sudden, deathly focus overcomes me.
And I don’t mean Ghoul.
Time seems to slow as my father strides up to the lectern on the back of a loud cheer from the crowd.
I don’t clap with them as he raises his hands in welcome, nor as loud screams vibrate through my body when three of his generals appear behind him, face masks in place, black camo gear pristine.
Fixed to the spot, I stare, the predator in me clocking the other high-order predators who’ve made themselves known.
Ghoul’s shadows are thick around him, lazily making swirls as if he wants to show off.
My father launches into a round of thanks to the people who invited him here and lists the things he wants to do to help the college.
“My efforts will not go in vain, I assure you of that,” he says, voice deep and provocative.
“Our voices will finally be heard. We are not creatures who skulk in the dark. We move proudly in the day, without fear. My first move will be to abolish the barcoding system.” The crowd roars its approval.
“If you would like to join the campaign, the sign-up sheet is going around. I am here to make a change for the better.”
My heart sinks in my stomach because I know what this sounds like.
It’s then that a faint red gleam catches my eye.
Ghoul’s darkness is on show like a creature of nightmares, but no one seems to care.
It excites the crowd as he stands there, so tall and so proud.
And yet I know his attention is on me. I know where those deadly red eyes point.
Like a waking dream, an image flashes before my eyes, and my jaw goes slack with shock.
I see my old bungalow, but I am young—only slightly older than the year of my exile.
Red fixes on me. I blink.
Surely not.
But my bungalow is lit up at night, the familiar buttery lights of my living room lighting up the panes of glass beyond my TV. Fourteen-year-old me sits cross-legged, tears in her eyes. This is impossible. Ghoul tilts his head ever so slightly.
“Yes, snakelet,” he says to an unanswered question.
A high-pitched buzzing pierces my ears. I can barely breathe as I ask him, “All this time?”
The floor seems to slant underneath me. My body leans forward, trying to counterbalance, but it utterly fails.
“All this time,” he confirms, just as I black out.