Chapter 7
A nother caramel latte and two cinnamon buns later, I was beginning to feel almost normal.
“You can’t go back to that room,” Curi said. “Fuck, if I hadn’t come with you today…”
I’d been thinking the same thing. “Something did that to her, Curi. We’ve got to help her.”
“She tried to drain your life force, Cam. I think she’s beyond help.”
If Curi hadn’t been there to drag me from the room, who knows how much damage Melanie could have done? She could have killed me.
“You’re still too pale,” Curi said. “I don’t think you should train today.”
“I’ll be fine. Missing training is not an option.”
“Then eat one more of these.” Curi placed another bun on my plate. “I’ll get us refills on our drinks.”
He headed back to the counter, leaving me at our table for two by the window.
I bit into the bun and chewed, trying to pinpoint what was bothering me about my encounter with Melanie, and then it hit me.
Derek hadn’t materialized. He always materialized if I felt threatened, and Melanie hadn’t evoked that fear, that threat, because there’d been something in the depths of her dark eyes—a plea, a desperation—that had nothing to do with hunger or malice.
I wrapped the rest of the bun in a napkin and hurried to join Curi at the counter. “Curi, get those drinks to go. We need to see Yarrow.”
The academy was waking up as we headed to the main building. With the elite trials around the corner, we’d been excused from other classes, our only goal to train for the trials. Any later and we might have risked catching Yarrow in class, but this early, he’d probably still be in the tutor wing.
We passed an alchemist on the stairs, and a prickle of awareness skimmed over my mind like fingers caressing my bare flesh.
“Urgh.” Curi shook his head. “I hate that they’re allowed to do that. My fucking mind is not free viewing.”
I gave him a teasing smile. “Why? What you got in there?”
He arched a brow. “Trust me, Basque, you don’t want to know.”
For a moment, we were back in the teasing, banter stage, a mode that had existed before the cadet exams, before…I dropped my gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Curi said.
I shook my head. “No.” I linked arms with him. “It’s good. It’s…normal. I want us to be normal.” Maybe it would make the deadness inside me a little less cold.
I spotted Dayn in the hallway chatting to a few cadets I didn’t recognize.
“We have new recruits,” Curi said, his tone low, “and it looks like Dayn is also recruiting for his fuckwad team.”
Dayn was a blackmailing son of a bitch. He liked to control goyles. He didn’t have friends, he had puppets, and since he’d lost his current crew, he was obviously recruiting more.
“We can’t let him do this, Curi. Not to any more goyles.”
“Trust me,” Curi said. “He won’t be.” A wicked smile tugged at his lips, the kind I hadn’t seen since my first weeks here.
A shiver rushed up my spine. “You found out something about him?”
“I sure did, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to use it.”
Dayn broke off conversation as we approached.
His gaze dropped to our linked arms, and a dirty smirk bloomed on his face.
“When I found out you were mated to the sigma, I figured you two were faking it, but I guess you weren’t.
” He raked Curi up and down. “Did you enjoy fucking her while she thought of him?”
The new cadets looked uncomfortable, which said a lot about their characters. Dayn was the last person they needed to be hanging around.
“I had a little chat with my sire a few days ago,” Curi said. “We haven’t been on great terms ever since the accident with Selas.” He leaned in. “You know, the one you found out about and were going to blackmail me with?”
A couple of the cadets exchanged glances, and Dayn cleared his throat. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”
“Anyway,” Curi continued, “topic of the Lowthers came up. Turns out my sire has connections at the registration offices all around the fringe. Knows what goes on in records. The coverups. The misinformation…How names can be altered to protect the affluent goyle families from unnecessary claims from halfbloods.” He shrugged. “That type of thing.”
Dayn’s face drained of color. “Right…I suppose that could be interesting.”
“Oh, it is. It was a very interesting conversation. But someone like you, from a family who prides themselves on having not a single halfblood in their family tree, wouldn’t be interested in such things.”
I’d never seen someone gulp before. “I should…get going,” Dayn said quickly. “Classes to prepare for.” He backed away, turned on his heel, and strode off.
“Stay away from him,” Curi warned the newer cadets. “He’s bad news. Trust me.”
“You’re Mason, aren’t you?” a slender male with a shock of blond hair asked.
“I am.”
“And Basque.” He smiled shyly at me. “We heard what happened at the cadet exams. We’re so sorry.”
My mouth was suddenly dry, but I forced it into a smile. “Thank you.”
They wandered off, and Curi steered me toward the stairs. “Not a bad bunch.”
“No. Not at all.”
We climbed side by side. “So Lowther has halfbloods in his family?”
Curi shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What? But you just said…You lied?”
He shot me a mischievous smile. “Not at all. I did speak to my sire, and he does have contacts at the registration offices, and forms are falsified all the time to hide halfbloods’ true lineages. I never said Lowther was one of those lineages.”
“But he just assumed.” I let out a bark of laughter. “Curi, you aren’t just a pretty face, are you?”
“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” he teased.
I smiled up into his warm brown eyes. “Gorgeous.” And he was. He was gorgeous to me not just because of how he looked, but because of who he was—kind, thoughtful, and funny. He was all those things, and I was so grateful to have him as a friend.
We bumped into Yarrow as he was exiting the tutors wing with his sister Flora. Her eyes lit up at the sight of us, but his brows came down in concern.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Flora nudged him. “Good afternoon would be a better place to start.”
Yarrow rolled his eyes. “Good afternoon. Now, is everything all right?”
“Actually, I was hoping you could help me.” I filled him in on what happened with Melanie.
“That can’t be right,” Yarrow said. “It takes years for a ghost to turn into a spirit ghoul. Melanie may have been haunting the campus for decades, but you said that she was coherent and placid up until a few weeks ago, right?”
“Correct.” I glanced at Flora. “She was fine until the night that you were attacked. Melanie was attacked then too.”
Flora’s bright eyes dimmed. “I wish I could recall what happened. I can’t even remember what I was doing in that part of the building.” She wrung her hands. “Every time I think on it, I get so…anxious.”
“Then don’t.” Yarrow gently took her hands. “Don’t think on it.” He turned his attention on us, his golden eyes narrow, jaw tight. “It was powerful allure, enough to steal her memories not only of those few moments but those of the several hours prior. We’ve tried to recover them but to no avail.”
Curi frowned down at me. “If Yarrow can’t get Flora’s memories back, then what makes you think Melanie will remember anything?”
But helping Melanie was about more than that one incident.
“It’s not about helping her remember what happened in that filing room.
I want to help her become…her again. Willowman got me a potion that can help her remember her past and be whole again.
It’s my fault that she was in that filing room in the first place. She’s lost herself because of it.”
“Spirits hold memories in a different manner to flesh and blood beings,” Yarrow said.
“There are no neural pathways to navigate, no synapses to eradicate. In Melanie’s case, her memories are held in the ether around her, and the attacker, whoever it may be, has cut off her access to it.
Not just the memories of that incident but to all her memories.
” He nodded as if he was coming to understand something.
“It would explain how she might be turning into a spirit ghoul so quickly. Maybe…But I believe she can be restored.” His lip curled.
“And when she is whole, we will find the culprit responsible.”
“We should check the crystals,” Flora said. “Just to make sure they’re charged and working.”
“Give me the key to the room and leave it with us,” Yarrow said. “I’m eager to get my hands on the person responsible for tampering with my sister’s mind. I want to help.”
I handed him the keys. “Be careful, though. She almost knocked me out.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Yarrow said. “We’ll be prepared.”
We left the witches to their plotting and headed back down the stairs and out of the main building. Training started in an hour, which meant the rest of the team would be up and about at the elite tower.
“Do you think Touron will make pancakes?” Curi asked wistfully.
“We just ate a plateful of buns.”
“Are you telling me you’d say no to pancakes?”
We stepped off the porch and onto the path. “Not if they come with syrup.”
He chuckled. “Blueberries.”
“Ice cream.”
We spent the rest of the walk back to the tower thinking up pancake toppings and hoping that Touron would make our dreams come true.