Chapter 16 Nyx
NYX
Honestly, I’ve had worse. On the spectrum of shitty days, yesterday barely breaks top five.
There was that time when my foster brother locked me out one night and I slept in a literal dog house.
And the time I’d gotten off work late and one of the truckers who’d played grabass earlier in my shift had waited for me behind the bar until Carlos scared him off.
Or when I’d gotten the final college rejection letter after spending the last of my grocery money on application fees, and my last avenue for escaping Lynden evaporated into thin air.
I’ve never been mistaken for an optimist, but ending up in the safety of my locked dorm with fresh food last night is something worth celebrating.
If someone had told me earlier this week that Killian Hastings, fuckboy extraordinaire, would come to my rescue and almost be a gentleman about it, I’d have asked them for a hit of whatever they’re smoking.
And yet here I am. Staring at my backpack propped against my door, with a series of texts on my phone from an unknown number.
Unknown
Call me next time you’re undressed. I mean in distress. Promise I’ll come
Sincerely, your knight in sweaty armor
This is Killian btw
My stomach does this weird little flip that I shut down an instant later, because I’m an intelligent sort of woman who knows better. Everything’s accounted for when I rifle through my backpack. Except for—
Nyx Byrke
Did my knight in sweaty armor happen to locate my underwear?
His reply comes moments later as I’m typing an email to Professor Brandt explaining why I was a no-show for our mentoring session after class yesterday, minus the more lurid details.
Killian Hastings
Nowhere to be found, I’m afraid. Must have walked away with the towels
God damn it. Why’d he have to be funny too?
After dashing in and out of the Great Hall for whatever food I can grab before anyone tries to stop me, I spend the next two hours in Creative Design.
It makes sense, I guess, that with things like runes and sigils and spells and shit, one really should know how to draw a straight line.
It’s the one class this week where no one seems to give a shit about me one way or another—just the way I like it.
The crisp Autumn air is at odds with the afternoon sunshine that warms my skin as I leave the building.
I brave the Great Hall once again before giving the quad around the Foundation Stone a wide berth to avoid the Heirs holding court.
Literally, they’re surrounded by adoring men and women—I can see the stars in their eyes from here.
I finally find a secluded spot to eat beneath the shade of an enormous, red-tinged oak tree on the edge of the main campus.
Neither my brain nor my body have ever really learned how to relax—always bracing for whatever’s coming next.
So I spend what should be a calm afternoon in the sun thinking about the litany of shit I’ve dealt with the past week, and mentally preparing for the next.
Hard to believe it’s almost October already, but I guess time flies when you’re not having fun.
Later this afternoon I have my first elemental class—Brandt thinks that exposure to each elemental affinity may convince whatever it is the flips that magical switch inside of me to hurry the fuck up already.
My words, not his. I’ll spend four weeks auditing the remedial classes for each elemental affinity: fire and earth through the end of term, then air and water once the next term starts in January.
If I haven’t manifested any magic by the time I go through all four—well, I have no idea. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.
“Learn and observe. Try to feel and connect to the magic around you,” his email explained.
I can’t help but picture the wall of magical fire as it descended the night Augustine took me.
The reminder of fear and panic making my stomach churn as I follow the signs to the warded classrooms on the opposite wing of the Training Center I usually go to for Physical Training.
Apparently they’re spelled to withstand the potential catastrophes that can occur when students can’t control their affinity.
The instructor is a no-nonsense older guy in his forties with a handlebar mustache who doesn’t bother introducing himself before lobbing verbal abuse at the cowed students in class, reminding me more of a drill sergeant than a college professor.
Everyone’s too terrified of Professor Handlebar to remember that I even exist, let alone antagonize me—was that really so hard?
It’s ironic that I feel safer surrounded by magical flames than I do walking across campus.
Other than evading the occasional stray flame, it’s breathtaking.
Everything I never thought possible, right in front of me, erasing the lingering doubt I refused to admit.
Hard to argue it’s not real when the professor tortures everyone with his version of dodge(fire)ball where headshots are not only allowed but encouraged.
Harder to argue still when I return to my dorm room and see that fucking creepy-ass tarot deck, innocently placed on my desk like it didn’t just commit some sort of magical B&E.
There’s a brief moment I worry someone broke into my dorm before I recall Professor Chamberlain’s comment about “opening my mind to new possibilities.” If this deck truly is…
sentient, somehow, then I’m convinced it’s determined to fuck with me.
Which, honestly? That tracks at this point.
Just as I’m about to start getting ready for bed—ignoring the growing cabin fever after basically sequestering myself in my room for the last two weeks—a small part of me longs for the loud, sticky chaos of Daly’s.
I miss sacrificing my tastebuds to test Carlos’ new recipes.
I want to hear how Cora’s birthday party went, and if she got the ear piercings she wanted.
I wonder if Misty’s gotten any new library rejects from the next county over.
But the echoes of Eileen’s raspy parting words remind me of my promise, and I delete the message I’d almost sent on my old phone.
But because the universe has a sick sense of humor, I startle when my phone pings with a new message. Only, it’s not from anyone in Lynden.
Killian Hastings
I may have a lead on the missing underwear. You down for a search & rescue?
Be strong, Nyx. Don’t fall for it. And definitely don’t text him back, because that’d only feed the beast.
After taking a hot shower, bringing my clothes into the stall with me to avoid “losing” another pair of underwear, I change into boy shorts and an oversized t-shirt that’s seen better days, just as students begin to stampede through the hallway on their way from dinner.
It occurs to me then that I may have just had my first legitimately good… ish, day at Dreadhurst.
Huh.
Not to be outdone by even a hint of optimism, the universe plays yet another joke on me when there’s a knock at my door.
I freeze, hoping they’ll go away if I pretend I’m not here.
The knocking becomes insistent, and I groan in frustration.
When I open it, my stomach drops when Killian leans against the frame like an honest-to-fuck thirst trap.
“Do you practice posing in the mirror?” I accuse, crossing my arms.
His practiced grin wavers for a moment before recovering. “Don’t you look cozy, sleepy girl.” His eyes scan my body without an ounce of subtlety. “You like it?” he asks, flexing his biceps.
“What, showing up unannounced and uninvited?” I say, ignoring the mouthwatering muscles just in my periphery.
Unfazed, he pulls out a bottle of liquor from behind his back. “Well you see, if I’d texted you that I was coming over, would you have opened the door?”
“I think we both know the answer to that question.”
He puts his hand over his heart. “You wound me, fair maiden.”
“The knight doth protest too much,” I retort, but can’t hold back the twitch of my lips. My moment of weakness doesn’t go unnoticed, and his grin turns feral when he leans in close enough for me to make out the details of his deep blue-green eyes.
“Let me in, pretty girl,” he whispers, and I step back to keep myself from falling into his trap, only for him to follow until a shriek sounds from down the hall, breaking our little moment.
“Killian!” We both turn as a trio of girls who I vaguely recognize as some of the groupies from the quad earlier today.
They home in on Killian like sharks scenting blood in the water, not sparing me a glance.
He turns that same practiced smile on them and I shrink back into my room, not wanting to be caught in their crosshairs.
“Hey Killy,” one of them purrs, and he stiffens slightly at the nickname—interesting—but his thousand-watt smile doesn’t dim.
They’re too focused on pawing at his clothes like they’re about to jump him right here in the hallway to notice his reaction.
One of them grabs the bottle out of his hands and clutches it to her chest, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Fae wine? Baby you shouldn’t have,” she squeals and throws her arm around his neck, pressing her chest into his and going in for a kiss that he barely avoids by turning his cheek.
His eyes connect with mine for half a second before she releases him, stroking her hand down his chest until she reaches his stomach and he steps back, moving so smoothly that she doesn’t notice him taking her hand to put distance between them.
“Did you miss me?” she purrs, trying to further invade his personal space. The other two are hanging off to the side—only just—but have the same ravenous gleam in their eyes as the one currently trying to accost Killian in the hallway.