Chapter 19 #2
He huffs a laugh, his hands disappearing from my body, and I open my eyes to find he’s placed them on either side of my head, staring down at me, eyes dark and glittering. ‘You’re stubborn. So, so stubborn.’
I shift my hands up to his face, not wanting him to stop. ‘Is that a yes?’
Then he’s kissing me, hard, opening my mouth with his, claiming me, pressing into me.
His hands move down, skimming my waist then down to my thighs, lifting me against the wall.
I straddle him, wrapping my legs around his back, gasping as his tongue moves with mine.
He’s everything. My entire world shrinks to the wall at my back, his lips, his body pressed against me, a pulsing ache rising, my body grinding against his, him hard beneath me.
I arch into him, wanting him. Wanting this to be more than a kiss, wanting to give in, to pull him into my bedroom and rip the shirt from his chest—
Thumps sound on the staircase, then voices and, just as quickly, he releases his grip on my thighs.
I unwind from him, sliding to the floor.
He moves away, breathing hard, leaving me gasping for breath as we watch each other, three hopefuls moving past our half-landing.
His lips are red and swollen, dark hair tousled, and I burn for him.
All I want to do is pull him into me and quell this ache building at my core.
He quirks a smile, as though he knows what I’m thinking, just standing there watching me. As I watch him.
‘I’ll be your partner, DeWinter. But I don’t know if I can trust you. At some point, I’ll find out why you ask so many questions. Why you’re really here.’
Then he’s gone, closing the door of his bedroom, leaving me in an impossible swirl of heat and desire.
Damn him. Damn him and his words and his suspicion.
I can’t tell him about the Collector, or my past, or why I have to succeed.
The vulnerability of sharing that, of exposing my past, what may happen if I have to leave, it’s too much.
I can’t stand the thought of him judging me, that what I’ve done, who I was, would shock and disappoint him.
As I glance along our row, sitting in a room filled with desks in Gantry Hall on the first floor two days later, all I can think about is his mouth, those serious eyes, the honesty he’s shown me and the teasing way his hand brushes my waist sometimes, sending little shocks of electricity all through me—
The door to the classroom opens, breaking my thoughts, and a young man steps in. He casts a look over all of us, his eyes lighting up when he spots Alden, before turning to Professor Lewellyn. ‘Apologies for my lateness.’
‘No problem. Glad you could join us, Knox. Take a seat.’
Knox …
I squint, raking my memories. Now where have I seen him before?
The young man, Knox, strides for an empty chair at the back of the room and there’s a flurry of murmurs as Alden raises his chin in greeting. He’s average height, dark brown hair, ice-blue eyes that are narrow and calculating, sweeping over all of us like he’s cataloguing.
‘I guess we have to do a new tally now Knox has joined us,’ Professor Lewellyn says. ‘Thirty-five hopefuls, and just one of your number is an alchemist.’
I resist turning in my seat to stare at him, but Fion, sitting at the front, doesn’t bother hiding her interest. She turns fully in her seat, looks over my shoulder, and narrows her eyes at the newcomer.
Tessa leans over, whispering behind her hand. ‘She’s not so special now …’
I crack a grin and Fion fixes that scowl on us before facing the blackboard again.
An alchemist. Someone with the rarest of magics …
but why is he joining us now? And how come Professor Lewellyn seems to know him?
How come Alden knows him? I rip a piece of paper from my notebook and scribble a single question mark on it.
I clear my throat and Alden glances over as I hold up the paper, as though covering my mouth to cough.
He raises his eyebrows and scribbles a few words in his notebook holding it at a slight angle as he makes a fuss of crossing one ankle over the other.
Wouldn’t you like to know.
I frown and scrunch up the paper with the question mark scribbled on it.
Clearly we won’t get any answers now. Professor Lewellyn talks a little more about Killmarth College, how the founders wanted a place of refuge for wielders to practise and learn when it was founded after the Fair Age just under a hundred years ago, how they valued courage, cunning, loyalty and resourcefulness above all.
How each Ordeal until the final one isn’t designed to test our magic, it’s designed to measure these traits.
I wonder at one of them … loyalty. Because surely such a cut-throat, semester-long entrance exam is designed to divide, not unite us?
But then I think about the Ordeals themselves.
How I’ve formed alliances. How despite her not being my partner, I refused to leave Tessa behind, and Alden was prepared to go to the point of burnout to save the lives of those other hopefuls and give them a fighting chance.
How we went out in the Morlagh that night to search for wolfsbane for Greg. And I wonder …
Have I got this all wrong?
If we’re being trained to defend against an attack from the cold ones, are they searching for the strongest, the most united year group?
When we file out at lunchtime to the hall below in Gantry, it doesn’t take long for the rumours to catch alight.
That Knox isn’t just an alchemist, he’s spent the past year in Theine, for reasons unknown.
Some murmur of a terrible illness he’s been fighting, some whisper of a shadowy organisation he’s embroiled in and some claim he’s just got out of prison, where he’s been detained by the Crown in Kellend, and hasn’t been in Theine at all.
I glance at him discreetly as I’m grabbing bread rolls at lunch, taking pieces of cheese and filling a bowl with pot roast. He’s sitting next to Alden and they’re both taking it in turns to crack jokes, their laughter booming down the table.
And Knox … perhaps I’m imagining it, but he really is strangely familiar.
As though I’ve met some version of him before.
He leans back in his chair and a slant of light catches his hair, highlighting the cut of his cheekbones and sliding over brown eyes.
Not as intense as Alden’s, not as captivating and dark …
but there’s a certain quality about him.
He’s polished in a way I would find young men to be at society gatherings, clean-shaven with the kind of dewy complexion only money can buy.
He’s not as tall as Alden, but his presence in the room is notable, and several male scholars are glancing his way with assessing, hungry eyes.
‘Do you feel like we’re witnessing a secret society reunion?’ Tessa whispers to me, her eyes sliding to Alden and then Knox.
Greg leans in and adds, ‘They went to school together like me and T. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a fair few secrets between Locke and Darley.’
‘Darley?’ I ask, interest flaring. ‘As in Darley Hall?’
Greg nods, buttering a bread roll. ‘Direct descendent of the founder. Last relation to attend was Ezra Darley a couple of decades or so ago.’
‘For a werewolf, you’re surprisingly knowledgeable,’ I say with a wink.
‘Woof.’
Tessa snorts, reaching for more cheese. ‘At least there haven’t been any more murders. Maybe it was Richards.’
‘He was a botanist,’ I say through a mouthful of bread, then swallow, wondering if he was responsible for poisoning his friend at the welcome dinner. After seeing him with that axe, I wouldn’t have put it past him. ‘But it could have been Zelene. She died in the maze too.’
Tessa and Greg begin speculating on the murderer and I sit back, contemplating the new stranger in our midst. When would I have met a Darley?
If he’s related to one of the founders, that indicates an old magical bloodline …
possibly old money too? Have I met him or this relative, Ezra, when I was on an assignment?
Maybe he was one of my marks. I’ve lost count over the years, preferring to forget the faces and names of the people I have possibly condemned by putting them on the Collector’s map.
Then I remember, Ezra Darley was one of the names in that photograph in Darley Hall that Tessa and I found.
The one taken twenty-five years ago. I look back at Knox and, with a jolt, find that he’s watching me.
I hold his gaze and note something there, a flicker of recognition.
He pretends to laugh at what Alden is saying, breaking eye contact with me and busying himself with his lunch.
Suddenly, I realise where I’ve seen him before.
He was with Alden in the bar the day that I first met him.
I eat in near silence, shovelling the pot roast into my mouth, keeping him in my periphery, trying to remember the snippets of that conversation.
I leave the hall after nearly everyone else.
As I walk out, I shrug my coat around my shoulders to ward off the chill.
Inside my pocket I feel a folded sheet of paper. Frowning, I open it out and read:
Poison Garden.
Midnight.
You’re in danger.
My footsteps stutter to a halt. Spinning quickly, I check if anyone has followed me out of Gantry, but there’s no one.
The hall was practically empty when I left and where there is usually the low hum of voices, there is an almost deathly quiet.
I place my hand on the granite wall, a shiver brushing the back of my neck as I stare at the note, trying to recognise the writing.
I’ve seen Alden’s handwriting, Tessa’s, Greg’s, many of the other hopefuls by this point in Lewellyn’s lectures we’ve attended.
This handwriting is unknown and strange, like the writer deliberately disguised their own hand.
And the note itself smells like fresh ink and printing paper, not like the mildewed walls of Killmarth.
Casting my eyes low, I hurry across the courtyard, heart thrash ing behind the cage of my ribs. I would bet anything this note is from Knox, and he has a message for me. Or a knife. That haunting stare … I didn’t imagine it. Knox Darley may be Alden’s friend, but he may not be mine.
You’re in danger.
I know I shouldn’t. I know I should place this note in my room, ignore the summons and find out as much as I can about Knox before I make a move.
But the trained part of me is being silenced by the other part …
instinct. And I’ve survived so far here by trusting my wits more than anything.
I fold up the note and place it carefully in my pocket.
A knife or a message. I guess I’ll find out at midnight either way.