Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Elodie
As I walk with Cole toward the Apollo Building, so much gloom drapes the campus that our concealing magic barely seems necessary. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but the thick clouds overhead blot out most of the sun. The humidity in the air drags at my skin.
It’s not an omen. The weather doesn’t actually predict the future, no matter how often humans have tried to read the skies for clues.
All the same, it’s hard to stop my skin from creeping. Especially given what we’re here to do.
To distract myself, I focus on the man next to me: the even grimmer counterpart of the already grim match I knew.
Even with three additional years of teaching under his belt, Cole doesn’t look totally comfortable at the academy. He’s on edge because of our covert task, but I’ve seen some of that tension in his stride even when he’s pacing around the Divination classroom.
“What are you going to do after Asher graduates?” I ask abruptly.
Cole’s head ticks toward me with a crease through his brow. “What do you mean?”
My tongue stumbles with the sense that I might be sticking my foot in my mouth, but I push onward. I want to know this man, this version of my match, too.
“Where I came from… that Cole stepped down from his professorship not long after we… lost Asher. He said he only got the job to get Asher into Luminary, so there wasn’t any point in keeping going otherwise. I don’t know if that’s the same for you?”
The professor stares at me for a few seconds. Maybe he’s never thought that far ahead.
“It might be necessary to stay on,” he says. “If he goes on to graduate studies—or to give him a leg up when looking for work. Having close family in a respectable position could help.”
He has no idea that no one will care about family status in the kind of job Asher’s going to pursue. I’m not going to be the one to spill those beans.
“And after that?” I prod instead.
“I suppose I’ll see what suits me. I can’t say I’m all that attached to my exalted company here.”
I feign shock. “Really? But you put on such a show of adoring all your privileged students.”
Cole glowers at my sarcasm. “Very funny. What did the ‘other me’ do after he left?”
“Some tutoring, some consulting… The police tried to recruit him, but I think that type of work reminded him too much of what happened to Asher.” A lump snags in my throat before I swallow it down.
“He liked to sketch and paint too, when he let himself take the time. I always thought he might pursue that professionally someday… after he could stop worrying about making as much money as possible to help with our tuition. Do you draw?”
Something in the professor’s expression shutters, emphatically enough that I can guess the answer is yes before he speaks. “Rarely. It isn’t a skill that’s opened any doors for me.”
Speaking of doors, the Apollo Building looms right in front of us now. As we step past the entrance into the vaulted front hall outside the library, I yank my full attention back to the task at hand.
Dropping my concealment spell, I peer through the mottled shadows. “Are you sure no one will come by?”
Cole clicks over the deadbolt inside the main door. “Only staff have the key, and even maintenance has Sundays off. I confirmed there aren’t any special programs scheduled today.”
The parking lot was totally vacant—I assume Cole left his car on a side street. I exhale slowly, willing my nerves to settle.
Cole glances down at me with an uncharacteristic trace of uncertainty in his usual stern expression. “Do you expect our purpose to take very long?”
He has no idea what to expect from his glim… and I’m still not sure how much I can explain in advance without unsettling him more than assuaging his nerves. His mind needs to be focused and unagitated if he’s going to master his innate power quickly.
My imagined voice of the other Cole wavers up through my thoughts. “You’re more prepared than we were the first time—as prepared as you really can be. He’ll feel better once he knows, even with what it is. I did.”
I hope this Cole is identical to that one at least in that respect.
“No,” I say, adjusting the potted plant I’ve carried across the campus against my chest. “You’ve had so much time to get comfortable with your magic in general. You should get your glim under control pretty easily. You did before—the other you.”
Cole’s mouth slants at a taut angle. He considers the similarly sized plant he’s holding, because I figured a little variety was wise, just in case. “Are you going to tell me what these are for?”
“It’ll be easier if you see. Come on—you said the room we can use is in the basement?”
He nods and pushes forward. “You wanted somewhere sound wouldn’t travel outside the building, empty and decently large. There’s a room across from the radiant shrine that they sometimes use for larger rituals or whatever exactly it is the ‘Faithful’ do.”
We tread down the stairs and into the much narrower hall below. The entrance to the shrine where a few students worship our radiant forebearers as gods stands open. Several of the yellow-flared crystal spheres dangle from the arched doorway.
I tamp down on my urge to snoop and follow Cole to the closed door opposite.
Considering that it’s been centuries since anyone’s reported a trace of the supernatural beings we can thank for our powers, I’ve always shared the common opinion that “radiators” are kind of bonkers.
But I guess it gives them some comfort to think higher powers are guiding our lives from above, rather than fickle fate connecting us with our matches and then casting us adrift.
It must be nice to trust that someone who’s smarter than you is ushering you along an ideal path.
Cole leads me into a room that’s about twenty feet by ten, with a low ceiling just a foot above his towering height. The flick of the light switch reveals a couple of storage cabinets against one wall. Otherwise, the space is empty.
I doubt we could have found a better setting.
As Cole locks the room’s door behind us, I ease across the linoleum floor. The surface will be more forgiving than hardwood, but I expect some magical repairs will be needed before we leave.
At least we should have plenty of time to take care of those. I’m not sure where we could have gone if there wasn’t a space available at the school.
I set my plant on the floor near the middle of the room. Cole places his a few feet away and steps back. “All right. Are you going to tell me anything before we do this?”
His stance is so tense I have to fight the urge to wrap my arms around him. I could have done that for the Cole I knew before, could have hugged him and known he’d find the contact reassuring.
This Cole, even with what we’re about to do, is keeping a careful distance from me. I guess that’s not surprising. It took his counterpart nearly two years to fully embrace our bond.
But that was when the bond sparked while I was still a teenager, and with Asher’s death hanging over our union.
Here’s hoping we can cut the adjustment time down a little.
I gird myself and slip off one of my gloves.
Now that he doesn’t have much time to ruminate over what I’m going to tell him, I should probably give him the basics.
“Part of your glim is a shifting in shape. The effect will come on quickly, but once you get a handle on your glim, you’ll be able to shift back.
Just concentrate on the plants as well as you can while it’s happening. ”
The professor stares at me. Shape-shifting might be one of the most popular elements in supernatural tales around the world, but in reality, full bodily transformation is rare.
Only a handful of lucents end up with a shifting glim, and even fewer manage to completely reconstruct their bodies into another form through ephemera manipulation alone.
I flex my fingers. “Are you ready?” The memories of the tender moments I’ve shared with his other self, of the amends this Cole has started to make with me, soften my voice. “We don’t have to do it right—”
“No,” Cole breaks in. “I’ve spent seven years wondering. You know what we’re dealing with. And it’ll help you.”
The fact that he puts the most emphasis on that last point squeezes my heart.
I hold out my hand, putting all the confidence I have into my words. “Then let’s bring your magic to life.”
Cole’s lips twitch with something closer to a smile. He removes his own glove, fixes his gaze on the plants standing in front of him, and extends his hand to clasp mine.
The moment our skin touches, a jolt races up my arm. My glim rushes to full force, energy rippling through my body seeking out any tiny weakness it could bolster.
As I suppress my power with long-practiced will, my fingers slip from Cole’s.
His hands plummet right to the floor. His body seizes up in a crouched position, back arching, head tossing.
Even though I’ve seen him go through the transformation before, my gut lurches the way it did the very first time when I wasn’t prepared at all.
His frame expands: torso lengthening and broadening, limbs snapping into new angles. His clothes seem to sink into his flesh amid the coarse, dusk-gray fur sprouting from his skin.
A groan tumbles from his mouth. It reverberates into an inhuman howl as his jaw and nose jut farther out.
The same fur ripples over his face. New, pointed ears poke from the top of his altered head.
A thick plume of a tail lashes through the air from the base of his spine. His sharp evergreen scent wafts over me with a new tang of musk.
I’m standing next to a massive wolf.
In his glim-brought form, Cole’s canine back stands nearly level with my shoulders. A growl vibrates from his chest. His amber eyes survey the room with feral intensity.
I hold perfectly still next to him, keeping my breaths even and my body loose. Not a threat. Not an enemy. Only his mate.