Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Colson
As I stroll along the limestone path between the plots of vegetation, the sharp taste of kavish leaf saturates my mouth. Every blossom and twig around me buzzes with its collected ephemera. The humid greenhouse air congeals against my skin.
Normally, I’d be heading to the academy around now, wanting to make an early review of my plans for the day’s classes. This conservatory opens an hour before my workday begins.
And it’s in that hour I’m hoping to cross paths with my target.
You’d think that when aiming to chat with a fellow professor, I’d be able to track him down at school. But Ivan Jovak has proven particularly difficult to pin down.
Since Elodie passed on her concerns to me a couple of days ago, I’ve meandered down the hall past his classroom when I’d expect him to be arriving or leaving, stopped by his office a few times, watched for him in the cafeteria and the staff lounge, and never caught more than a glimpse of him hustling away.
I’ve stopped shy of interrupting his classes only because it’ll raise questions that might harm my match more than help her.
Admittedly, my own class hours have limited my opportunities. But with each near miss, I’m increasingly convinced that Jovak is purposefully avoiding me.
Because he knows about my divinatory skills and is worried about what I might sense from him in innocent conversation? Because he’s guessed that I have a particular stake in Elodie’s well-being?
Whatever the case, it doesn’t bode well for her. I’d rather be able to dismiss her concerns, but I can’t ignore the evidence right in front of me.
My ephemera-reading abilities did serve me well regardless. I picked up enough glimmers of memories around Jovak’s office to piece together that he often starts off his day with a visit to the conservatory that’s a ten-minute drive from Luminary’s campus.
What a coincidence that I just happened to make a similar excursion this morning.
I sip the now-cooled coffee from my takeout cup, wishing I could gulp more of the bitter liquid. I have other plans for it. If Jovak actually makes an appearance.
If I don’t see him today, I’m not likely to catch him until after the weekend. We need answers sooner than that.
I check the time. Fifteen more minutes, and I’ll have to call the attempt a wash.
I’ve just shoved my phone back into my pocket when I spot a characteristic bright yellow shirt encasing a stout torso beyond the fronds of a fern.
Resisting the urge to sprint over to him, I ease along a cross-path until I’m on the same curving route Jovak is meandering. I stop there and pretend to admire the foliage of a spindly tree.
It’ll be better if he thinks he ran into me rather than the other way around.
From the corner of my eye, I track his approach through the leaves and blossoms of the botanical garden. He’s strolling at a snail’s pace, drinking from a cup of juice nearly as bright as his shirt with the label of a trendy shop down the street.
If he doesn’t hurry up, it won’t even matter that I’ve found him.
I risk sidling a few steps in his direction. When he comes around the last bend in the path, I clock him clocking me—and halting as if he might bolt in the opposite direction.
Well, I can’t have that.
I glance up and widen my eyes as if only just noticing him. “Ivan! I didn’t expect to run into anyone from the academy here.”
“Colson,” he replies in a more cautious tone, although that may be because he hadn’t realized we were on a first-name basis. Which we weren’t, until this moment.
He ambles just a little closer to maintain a friendly front, but I can discern the agitation in his bodily energies from even this far away.
“It’s a lovely place, isn’t it?” he says. “I find taking a walk here settles my mind before heading into the rest of my day.”
I close more of the remaining distance between us. “I see what you mean. It must be especially nice to soak up the warmth in the colder months. I only dropped in because I was in the area and noticed it.”
“Yes. It’s one of the city’s treasures.” He slurps down the rest of his juice. “I suppose it’s about time to get going…”
As he starts to edge away, I turn fully toward him. “Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. There was something I was meaning to ask—”
My fingers slip on my cup—what should look like a total accident to Jovak. The paper vessel careens away from my swinging hand, and the lukewarm coffee splatters his banana-yellow shirt.
I force my eyes even wider and an apologetic babble from my throat. “Oh, hell! I’m so sorry, Ivan. Here, let me—”
I snatch the wad of napkins I was carrying and start blotting his shirt, drawing a little ephemera into the effort to coax out the liquid before it can stain.
“It’s all right,” Jovak protests, tensing as if to back up, but I’ve got my fingers hooked in his shirt now. The ephemera twined deeper inside him quivers over my skin.
“No, no, I should make up for my clumsiness. I’ll have it out in a minute.
” I huff a sigh and continue dabbing. “Anyway, I gathered you’ve been running those supplementary combat seminars with the military captain?
Elodie Devine is part of those, I believe?
I wondered if you’ve noticed anything lax in her behavior.
I’ve had some issues with her in class.”
Jovak opens his mouth and closes it again, apparently fumbling for words. But it isn’t his words I’m most interested in.
Now that I’ve directed his thoughts toward a specific topic, flickers of sensation rise up through the impressions clinging to him. I glean frustration, a jitter of something like fear, and then a flash of triumph.
“We’ll get her—we’re seeing where she’s weak.”
A glimpse of Elodie walking on the green… paired with a flare of hostility that sears across my tongue.
My hold on the fabric falters, and he detaches himself. I’ve completely mopped up the spilled coffee already.
He checks his shirt, gives his short beard a little tug, and bobs his head to me. “Thank you; I’m good now. Miss Devine has kept pace with the other students in the program. I can’t say I’ve noticed anything unusual about her behavior.”
Everything I just sensed from him tells me otherwise. What does he have against the heir to the Devine family?
I’m not finding out any more today. Jovak tosses out a good-bye and bustles off in the opposite direction.
I grimace at my coffee cup and force myself to drain the last dregs.
My mission succeeded, and I can’t say I like the results. Or what I need to do next.
Four hours later, I’m tucked into a booth at the back of a diner, ten minutes from the academy in the opposite direction. The shell of magic I’ve cast around the booth conceals me from view and deflects any other patrons from claiming the seats for themselves.
Any patron except the woman I’m waiting for.
The bell over the door dings as Elodie enters. She surveys the room with a practiced wariness that’s obvious to me now that I know her full story.
How could I ever have mistaken her for the same spoiled Elodie Devine I taught for seven years?
On the other hand, how could I ever have imagined that Daphne Devine somehow managed to drag an alternate version of her niece from a different reality?
A waitress approaches Elodie, and whatever Elodie says sends her drifting away. With a flicker, it’s like my match isn’t even here anymore, although I can still sense her presence through a pulse in my palm that carries through my veins to my heart.
She steps through my conjured barrier, and I see her again, sinking onto the bench opposite me. She runs her fingers through her purple-streaked hair, a momentary shadow crossing her face.
My stomach knots. I don’t understand even half of what she’s been through. Can hardly conceive of how she got here at all.
I spent so much of the past several weeks berating her for her supposed failings. Questioning her intentions at every turn.
I watched her nearly fall apart when we snuck into that building across from the plaza, and even as a surge of concern brought me to her side, I never let go of my suspicions. I played up my tenderness, kissed her hand just to judge her reaction.
And the whole time she was fighting to keep the rest of us—even Asher; especially Asher—as safe as possible, while adrift in a universe she can’t call her own.
Who else have I ever known who’s shown that kind of strength and sacrifice?
She squares her shoulders and sets her elbows on the table. Just the fact that she only faltered for an instant before pulling herself together sends a twinge of pride I’m not sure I deserve to feel through my chest.
A wry smile crosses her pretty face. “So, you managed to track Professor Jovak down?”
Right to business. Well, it isn’t as if I’ve encouraged much warmth.
I’m not sure I can afford to even think about that aspect of our relationship. Not when there’s so much at stake.
Not when just looking at the sly curve of her lips makes me want to bend her over the table and have her moaning loud enough they’ll hear her back at the academy.
I tamp down the flare of heat the fleeting image provokes and focus on the much direr task at hand. “Yes. This morning, before classes. Our conversation was brief, but I did read some clear impressions from him.”
“And…?” The arch of Elodie’s eyebrows is almost playful, but there’s a tightness in her voice. She can guess the gist of what I’m going to say.
I don’t know how to put it gently, so I spit it out.
“All the feelings I caught toward you are negative. Aggression, fear, happiness when you stumbled. And I heard a comment he made to someone else, maybe Captain Ross? But I can’t be sure of that part.
Whoever it was, they were talking about determining your weaknesses. ”
Elodie’s smile fades into a sickly grimace. “Oh. Byron was right then. There’ve been a few things, the whole time— I had no idea Jovak even disliked me.”
The pain in her expression wrenches at me. “We don’t know what prompted his actions. He might be misinformed like Kenneth was.”
“Or maybe the other Elodie was a bitch to him and I have no idea.” Elodie rubs her temple and meets my gaze again. “Do you think he could have been talking to the same people as Kenneth?”
I splay my hands in a regretful gesture. “I don’t know. You’re right that he could have other reasons for wanting to harm you. But it’ll be easier if all your enemies are connected than if we’re facing threats from multiple fronts.”
Elodie’s grimace deepens. “Just an even more massive conspiracy than I guessed, that’s come right into the academy. Wonderful. And I haven’t even figured out how the things Other Elodie noticed at Beacon Prep fit in…”
Her face takes on a pensive cast I don’t think I ever saw on the previous Elodie. And because it’s this new Elodie, with all the strength she’s somehow cultivated, it isn’t long before a sense of resolve comes into her stance.
She studies me with the same pensiveness, intently enough that my skin starts to itch. I’m just discovering who she really is… but she knows all about me. Things I’ve never told anyone else.
Did the other version of me reveal the worst parts of my history? The choices I’m most ashamed of?
Did he go to the same lengths to fulfill his goals in the first place, or was he a better man than I am?
“My aunt isn’t back yet,” Elodie says abruptly. “I don’t know what exactly she was so worried about… but I don’t think we can afford to keep being so cautious. Not when there’s someone looking to cut me down right at Luminary.”
“You could refuse to continue the combat seminars.” That’s the obvious solution I came up with. “I’m sure you can invent an excuse—complain to your father and have him refuse on your behalf, if you want to pretend it wasn’t your decision.”
Elodie shakes her head. “I’ll be even more on guard during the sessions, but avoiding them won’t solve the problem. We need to know why Professor Jovak is against me and who he’s working with. We need to know who the woman who directed Kenneth is and who she’s working with.”
She’s still holding my gaze steadily. The knots in my stomach twist. “You sound like you already have a plan.”
She hesitates just for a second and then taps her forefinger on the tabletop. “Your innate magic won’t help us directly, but it did give your divination skill a boost as well. I think it’s time we activated your glim."