Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
The next time I wake up, I’m definitely not in the infirmary.
I’m lying on my side in an expansive bed, tucked into silky sheets under a thick quilt. Dark wooden posts rise from the corners of the frame to form a latticework canopy overhead.
A gilded leaf pattern decorates the wall across from me, where a matching wooden wardrobe stands. Next to it hang a pair of paintings: a stern middle-aged man with a craggy face and a similarly aged woman with a piercing gaze and familiar dark red hair, both in military uniform.
At the sight, the pieces click together in my head. I don’t know who those could be other than Stavros’s parents, and I don’t know whose bedroom would hold paintings of the late esteemed generals other than Stavros himself.
Why am I in his bed?
I shift tentatively to roll over. The stirring of the bed covers wafts a tickle of smoky pepper scent into the air that only confirms whose room I’m in.
A dull pain wakes up between my ribs at my back, and a fainter ache seeps through my skull where the knife hilt whacked me. Both sensations are far more tolerable than what I was feeling the last time I was conscious, so I’ll call that a win.
The bedroom door has been left open. At my movement, two figures appear at the doorway as if they’ve run over.
Casimir steps in first, his gorgeous face holding a mix of hope and worry. He hurries to the side of the bed and then hesitates. “How are you feeling?”
Alek ducks in after him, coming to a halt at the bed’s foot. His dark hair droops across the top of his mask to obscure his eyes, but his mouth twists tight as he waits for my answer.
I wet my lips and ease my hands across the mattress—which is even comfier than the sofa Stavros gave me, damn him and his fancy quarters. In a careful motion, I push myself into a sitting position.
The pain in my back flickers and settles back into its previous dull state. Nothing else hurts. That seems like some kind of miracle.
The thought of miracles brings a lump to the base of my throat.
“I think… I’m all right,” I say, testing out my voice. The rasp in it clears after the first few words.
“The medics fully closed your wounds,” Alek says hastily. “They said there shouldn’t be any permanent damage—it was lucky your attacker didn’t strike you with more force.”
I remember the slam of the blade deeper into me, the sear of it through my lung.
Luck, or some other power none of them would have considered?
Casimir is nodding. “They put you into a trance-sleep so your body could finish more of the healing on its own. We thought you’d be safer here than in the infirmary.”
My pulse skips a beat. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Not that long—about a day.” Alek looks down at his hands where they’ve closed around the bedframe and then back at me to blurt out, “I’m sorry.”
I blink at him. “For what? I’m pretty sure you weren’t the one who stabbed me.”
His stance goes even more rigid than it already was. “No one would have had the chance to stab you if we hadn’t come at you with all those accusations… I shouldn’t have gotten so upset.”
The reasons I went dashing down that secluded hall feel incredibly distant now in comparison to all my other concerns.
My fingers curl into the quilt, but I manage to keep my voice steady. “It seems you were at least right that I was in more danger than I was acknowledging. Was… was anyone else hurt yesterday?”
If I gave in to the strange voice and my magic’s demands inside me despite my best intentions—if my riven power sealed the worst of my injuries to keep me alive—someone must have faced the consequences.
But no sign of understanding crosses either of the men’s faces.
A crooked smile curves Casimir’s lips. “Not long before Stavros had you brought here, a couple of military division students came into the infirmary scuffed up from a fistfight, but that’s nothing unusual.”
No other injuries. No sudden wounds appearing out of nowhere.
I tense my arms against the sway of my body.
Does that mean I really did just get lucky? I managed to resist tapping into my magic at all?
I sink back against the pillow rather than continuing the fight for balance. “Did anyone see my attacker? Do you have any idea who it was?”
Alek frowns and leans forward. “No. You don’t remember anything?”
“There’s nothing to remember. I never saw them—they stabbed me from behind. After shoving me with a blast of wind.”
“The wind,” Casimir murmurs, his own expression darkening. “Stavros mentioned you said something about it—I thought that might be what you meant. I did look over the scroll about the tournaments, but it wasn’t helpful.”
“Someone with a gift for weather or air currents.” Alek’s grip tightens on the footboard. “All of the students we identified with weather-related talents were accounted for the evening Julita was attacked. We’ll have to check their activities yesterday afternoon, just in case.”
But whoever tried to kill me must be the same person who murdered Julita. It seems a bit much to imagine there are two wind-manipulating nobles running around slaughtering their peers.
Before I can say so, a tremor runs through the floor.
My body tenses all over again. “What was that?”
The men exchange a glance.
“A whole horde of the school’s daimon are acting up,” Alek says, his gaze veering toward the window where the afternoon sunlight is streaming in.
“The guards are trying to calm them down… They keep moving around, which means they’re not doing much damage anywhere, but also hard to contain…
They seem particularly interested in hitting the foundations of the buildings. ”
I stare at them. “And we’re still staying in those buildings?”
“They haven’t harmed anyone,” Casimir says quietly. “And the guards insist that they’re managing the situation.”
Alek makes a rough sound. “They know that if we all rushed out of the college, we’d send the inner wards into a panic too.” His gaze flicks back to me. “It isn’t as bad as the ball. So far we do seem to be better off staying.”
I don’t feel entirely reassured by the explanation, but I don’t have much will in me to argue. I just woke up—I’d hope they have a better sense of the risks than I do.
Casimir lifts his hand and then drops it to his side again. “You should focus on fully recovering. Do you want anything? Oh!” He hustles out of the room with his typical grace and returns holding a plate and a glass. “Benedikt brought up food from the lunch spread for you.”
“He’ll come by again later,” Alek puts in. “He wanted to apologize too. And Stavros will obviously be back—he stayed all morning, but they called a staff meeting about the daimon situation…”
“It’s all right.” I rub my forehead. I’m not sure I want to talk to either of the other men just yet.
I’m not sure I want to talk to the men right in front of me all that much either.
I motion to Casimir. “If you could put the food on the bedside table… And could I have a little space to myself? That might make recovering a little easier. I don’t feel all that bad—you don’t need to hover. You two must have classes and everything too.”
“That doesn’t—” Alek starts, but Casimir makes some gesture that cuts him off.
The courtesan gives me his gentle smile that brings a different sort of ache into my chest. “You never did get the alone time you were looking for yesterday. You should have that. But if you need us…”
He pulls out a silver trinket, an oval about the size of the pad of his thumb, with hinges on one side like a locket. When he flicks it open, I realize it is a locket—a plain one with no picture tucked inside.
“Benedikt had the idea of us getting these made when we were first starting our investigations,” he says. “I suppose Julita’s was lost. Press the inside, and it’ll send a small magical pulse to alert the rest of us and indicate where we should go.”
He sets the locket on the table next to my lunch. Alek adjusts his weight on his feet as if he’d like to say more, but his mouth stays clamped shut.
Does he expect me to apologize for the things I said?
I’m exhausted just remembering it, but it was all true. There’s nothing to take back.
Casimir nudges him. Alek bows his head, making a quick three-fingered tap down his front that I guess is meant for my safety, as if the divinities care about that.
The two of them leave the room. A moment after the outer door clicks shut behind them, another tremor ripples through the room.
My stomach knots. Whatever’s going wrong, it’s getting worse.
And whoever’s behind it knows that I’m hoping to stop them.
It’s too much. My world hasn’t stopped falling apart in the past day. It’s only fractured into more pieces, so many I don’t know how to fit them back together.
I close my eyes. The tingle of Julita’s presence stirs in the back of my skull.
“You’re still there, aren’t you?” I say. “You talked to me when the medic was first healing me.”
I’m here. Julita pauses. I thought I should probably wait and let you decide when you wanted to hear from me.
I guess my outburst yesterday was as critical of her as it was of the men.
I grimace. “I’m not angry with you. It was mostly them. The way they talked about you and the way you talked about them was just so… different.”
Something about the momentary silence has me picturing the chestnut-haired woman she once was bowing her head in shame. They’re good men, all of them. I just—I needed them. I needed someone. I couldn’t take on a whole conspiracy of scourge sorcerers on my own.
“Of course you couldn’t.” But that doesn’t mean she had to go around manipulating people’s vulnerabilities to get that support.
I needed to be sure, she says, as if she sensed my unspoken criticism. That kind of power—the temptation of it—there couldn’t be any chance… She trails off. We did work well together. They were always there for me. But it’s not as if it was really about me anyway.
“What else could it have been about?”