Chapter 15
Fifteen
Elodie
Ican’t tell whether Divination class has gotten better or worse since I sparked my matches. Cole has stopped heckling me, maybe because he’s wary of getting too close and feeling the tug of our bond, but every time I glance over at him, he seems to be studying me.
Is this version of the professor waiting for me to screw up? Does he still think I’m cheating in my assignments somehow, or does he figure he’ll discover some loophole to free him from our connection?
Or is something completely different eating at him that he hasn’t bothered to share?
I sit casually at my desk, pretending I don’t notice and also that I’m barely aware of my other two matches in the room. Next to me, Cadance is babbling on about a new lotion she’s discovered that “practically makes your skin sparkle.”
I guess she wasn’t too offended by my caustic remarks the other day.
“Next time I’m there, I’ll pick you up a sample,” she offers, and I make a vague noise of gratitude.
When Cole stands up to get the class underway, my stance tenses despite my best efforts.
His penetrating gaze sweeps over us. “We’ll be attempting a new partner exercise today.
Go out into the school and divine a prediction as you have before—with the help of one of your classmates.
Two minds working together can either cause confusion or bring more details to light, depending on how skilled you are in your observations and assessment.
As before, the more impactful the prediction, the higher your marks. ”
Cadance touches my arm as if to claim me, but Cole keeps going.
“To keep the assignment fair, since I know that’s very important to all of you, I’ve picked your partners based on your class rankings.
” He consults the tablet he’s holding, as if he’d need to check for this one.
“Mr. Worth and Miss Devine, that puts you together.”
I manage to stop my eyebrows from jumping up and cast a cautious glance toward Byron. Did our professor come up with this activity specifically to stick us together… and what were his reasons for giving us a chance to talk free of suspicion?
I’d like to think they were generous, but I have more doubts than a phoenix has feathers. Cole hasn’t seemed to approve of any aspect of our union so far.
As he rattles off the rest of the pairs, I move with feigned reluctance toward the door to meet my partner. Byron joins me on the threshold.
“One and two,” he remarks, referring to our class ranks. “You’d better not drag me down, Devine.”
I grimace at him, even though I’m pretty sure he’s just playing his own part. After the month I’ve had, it’s more surprising that I held on to the second spot than that I didn’t overtake him to claim first.
We step out of the classroom together, keeping a careful distance apart. I glance down the hall with its arched ceiling and brass sconces. Luminary likes to play up the castle vibe.
“Where do you want to hunt for a good prediction?” I ask.
Preferably somewhere we won’t run into our classmates so we can talk more freely.
Byron tilts his head with a sway of the short coils of his hair. He must be thinking along similar lines. “How about the teacher’s lounge? A divination about the staff will probably get higher marks, and there shouldn’t be much of anyone using it while classes are in session.”
It’s also out of the way, down a hallway past a bunch of the professors’ private offices. Perfect as long as we keep our voices down.
I nod. “Sounds good to me.”
Neither of us says anything else as we tramp up the stairs and pass several classrooms before we reach the staff area of the school. The aged hardwood floor creaks faintly under our feet. A whiff of tart varnish reaches my nose.
Byron glances around and speaks in an undertone. “Have you figured out your glim yet?”
Irritation prickles through me alongside a jab of guilt. I’d ask why everyone is constantly wondering about that, except I know why. It’s the most obvious point of interest after you’ve sparked a match.
A memory floats up of a myth I read once when I was absorbing everything I could about the various South Asian cultures Mom might have belonged to: a king asking a river goddess to marry him, the goddess agreeing and promising to stay as long as he swore never to question her.
I wish I could extract a promise like that from my matches. Although of course the king in the story screwed up and finally burst out with a question after all, ruining the whole marriage.
And I’m not delusional enough to think I have divine-caliber sway anyway.
So I simply shake my head. “I’m sure it’ll become clear when I need it.”
May I never need it again.
Byron shoots me a penetrating look, and my skin tightens all over again. Do I really want to be alone with him, risking him unraveling all my secrets?
After my day with Salvatore, I did make a silent commitment to open up to my matches more. To let them help me with the problem that’s looming over all of us, even if there are still a few things I can’t risk telling them.
Even as fear locks my mouth, an ache spreads through my chest to reach out to the man beside me.
I focus instead on the impressions of my original Byron lingering in my body. His firmly assured presence, the low cool voice that could steady me or inflame me with the right words, the crisp fresh scent I wanted to lick off his skin.
The last memory sets off a flash of heat low in my belly, but I summon a specter of that Byron’s presence alongside it. I can imagine him glancing from me to this new Byron and back with a wry smile.
“He’s still me, Precious, no matter how different you were here.
He wants to get to the bottom of this conspiracy and solve the problem, whatever it takes, for you.
Leaning on him, showing you could use his help—he’ll appreciate it, not resent it.
You know how much I like mastering a tricky situation. ”
And what will this Byron think if I keep holding him at a distance? Is he assuming like Salvatore has that I’m disappointed with the matches fate gave me?
I don’t dare touch him even in the empty hallway, but I meet Byron’s eyes and smile with all the fondness I have in me. I’ve jerked him around a lot in the past month, mostly inadvertently, but still…
We’re in this together now. Whatever details might be different, he’s proven he’s still the commanding, confident, honorable man who stuck by me the moment our bond marks formed.
I want this version of him to know I’ll count on him and that he can count on me too.
I pitch my voice similarly low. “I didn’t want to ask about The Eclipse in front of the other guys—I know the whole club is supposed to be secret. Did you find out anything at all?”
Byron steps a little closer, possibly so we can hear each other better, but his hand twitches at his side as if he’s held it back from touching me.
“Not a lot, but… I gave Grady a bit of a test, and I don’t think he and his friends know anything about Kenneth.
He was talking a big game, though—acting as if he was above even the club now. ”
I knit my brow. “Did he say what’d changed?”
“Nothing specific. He left early to do something apparently more important—he was picked up by a woman I didn’t recognize. I’ve stopped by the club a couple more times since, but he hasn’t been back while I’m there.”
My breath snags in my throat. “A woman? What did she look like?”
Byron smiles crookedly in apology. “I only got a glimpse of her. Middle-aged, I think—dark hair with a little gray in it. Fairly pale skin. That’s the most I could tell you. From her coloring, it could have been a relative of his.”
It could have been. Except that description also fits the woman who surreptitiously handed off a package to Kenneth the day before he tried to stab me.
The woman whose image has haunted my mind since I watched Salvatore’s pilfered video.
Grady was talking about getting “elevated” and all that. Kenneth’s grades went up. Are the Tadroses the key to everything?
Byron is studying my expression again. “Do you think it’s something else? Could she be tied to Kenneth too?”
“Maybe. See if you can find out more about what he’s doing with her.” Salvatore will expect to share his discovery with the others the next time we all meet, but I don’t want Byron going after this woman directly. I’d like to be more sure who we’re dealing with first.
This is one trail I do have to go down alone.
Which means it’s better not to linger on that topic. I grope for a change of subject, and my mind veers to the last time I saw Byron. “That first supplementary combat session was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? I hated every second of it. Did you get through it okay?”
I have to state my own discomfort first, or he might think I’m looking to needle him. Instead, his dark eyes flicker with concern, which wasn’t what I was going for either.
“I just had to get used to the shock waves. This school is always putting us through one hell or another.” He eases even closer, his gaze traveling over me like a caress. “Are you okay? I thought you stumbled in the middle of the course—if you were hiding that you got hurt…”
I was, but not the way he means.
I risk touching him, just a brief graze of my fingers against his chest, in an attempt at reassurance. “No, I’m fine. Believe me, I’m not so stoic I’d go around injured just to look tough.”
A different sort of warmth has flared in Byron’s gaze, but concern still tenses the corners of his mouth. “It looked like you had a bit of an argument with your friends afterward… I didn’t see Stella hanging out with you at lunch today. Is everything all right there?”
The fact that he cares enough to ask, even if it’s partly to do with our investigations, turns the ache inside me into a lump in my throat.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say honestly. “I’m not so worried that any of them are out to get me anymore—not in a murderous way, at least—but I was pretty harsh.
” I pause. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, though.
There’s so much they don’t even see… I don’t want to keep pretending I agree with them.
Especially when I have more important people in my life now. ”
I lift my gaze to meet his again. The affection that shines back at me takes my breath away.
“I’m glad to be one of those people,” Byron says. “I mean, if I’m not being too presumptuous.”
A short laugh tumbles out of me. I flick my gaze down the hall to confirm we’re still alone and then grasp his hand, just for a couple of seconds but with an emphatic squeeze. “You’re exactly who I meant.”
It takes a concentrated effort to let him go and drag my attention away. I consider the door to the staff lounge. “I guess we should get started on the actual assignment.”
Byron’s smile carries into his voice. “Professor Raith definitely isn’t giving us any special treatment if we slack off.”
We fall into an easy rhythm that feels startlingly familiar, both delving into the ephemera in this area of the hall and sharing our impressions back and forth, building off each other’s insights.
It’s a far cry from the antagonistic partnership we made during the Bloom Practicum just a few weeks ago.
“Enjoy it,” the Byron in my head says. “He is. I hope he’ll work with you every way you need, just as much as I did.”
I will down the renewed lump in my throat.
But as we work out our prediction about a joint project two of the professors are planning for the 16th years, Byron jotting down the official statement in his neat handwriting, the image of the woman in the coffee shop keeps intruding.
I never knew her name or any other specifics. Only that Uncle Nik and whoever he worked with believed she was a threat.
His voice swims up from the back of my mind, a real memory rather than imagined. “Every Wednesday at two, she arrives for a meeting. It’s the only time we can easily catch her.”
I still remember the place. All the details of my own side of that encounter were burned into my memory two and a half years ago.
Confirmation should be easy… except any Wednesday at two, I’m supposed to be at school.
As we walk back to the Divination classroom, I resist the urge to gnaw at my lower lip. What kind of excuse could I make up that couldn’t be easily disproven? If I just skip class like Salvatore did so casually, I’ll probably have the lucent police searching for me within the hour.
I need outside permission to be somewhere else, from someone who isn’t going to raise the alarm if I’m not doing what they said I would be. Who…
We step through the doorway, and my gaze falls on Cole where he’s poised in his chair behind his desk. His eyes narrow when he sees us, his posture drawing straighter with professional authority.
Maybe it’s time he put that authority to better use.
I wait until everyone’s returned and handed in their assignments, anticipation squirming in my gut like I’ve swallowed Tinkerbell. When Cole dismisses the class, I head to his desk rather than the door.
He picks up his briefcase and looks at me like he’s considering whacking me over the head with it. “Yes, Miss Devine?”
His voice is sharp with warning, but I push onward. “I have a question about the material.”
As the last of my classmates departs with a thud of the door behind them, he exhales with a hint of a sigh. “All right. What is it? And I’m guessing it’s not actually about your Divination work?”
“Not exactly.” I put on my best innocently determined face. “I need you to give me an extra credit assignment and an excusal from my afternoon classes on Wednesday to carry it out. There’s something relating to… other serious matters… that I can only look into during school hours.”
Cole’s face turns incredulous. “Not asking much, are you?”
I frown at his sarcastic response. “I wouldn’t ask at all if it wasn’t important.”
“What exactly are you looking into that’s so ‘important’?”
Posing the difficult questions now. I long again to be a river goddess.
Since I remain just me, I weigh my answer. “It’s difficult to explain. Something I heard that could relate to my attacker. If the lead gets me anywhere, you’ll be the first to find out.”
Professor Raith studies me for a moment longer—long enough that my skin starts to both creep and tingle with his scrutiny. It’s not a combination I recommend.
“Yes, I will,” he says abruptly. “Because you’re only going if I’m joining you.”