Chapter 18
CAM
S elas and I took a lift to the sixth floor and into a lounge with four doors leading off it.
“That’s my room.” Selas pointed to the right. “Shared bathroom.” She pointed straight ahead. “And this one is yours.” She pushed open the door to the left of the bathroom and stepped back to let me inside.
The room smelled like fresh linen. The king-size bed took up most of the space, the rest occupied by a dresser and wardrobe. My things sat neatly on the rug at the foot of the bed. There was only one window, fitted with blinds.
“I know it’s small,” Selas said. “But you can make it your own. We’ll go into Asteria and grab some throws and cushions if you like.”
“No. It’s fine the way it is. Easier to keep tidy.”
“You sound just like Romi.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have—”
“No. I want to talk about him. I need to.” I scanned the room. “Was this…Was this his room?”
“Yes. Is that okay?”
I blinked against the gathering heat behind my eyes. “It’s more than okay. Thank you.”
She cleared her throat. “Okay, well. I’ll leave you to unpack. Supper will be ready in thirty minutes.” She closed the door, shutting me into what had once been Romi’s space.
There was nothing left of him in here now, but the fact that he’d been here, occupied this room, meant that he’d left an imprint. I pressed my palm to the wall and closed my eyes. “I will find you, Romi. I’ll find you, and I’ll bring you back.”
* * *
The observatory was a tower, housing seven floors. I was on the sixth with Selas, two floors above Serath, with Orix and Prasan a floor below us.
Each floor had a lounge, but there was a huge communal space on floor three and a kitchen on floor two. A state-of-the-art gymnasium filled the first floor, which explained why I’d never seen the elites in the training room.
My stomach trembled with nerves as I took the lift to the second floor.
So far, the other elites had stayed out of sight, but now I’d be thrown into their midst, forced to get to know them and be a part of this group.
Would I fit in here? I couldn’t imagine feeling at home, not like I did in the dorms with my friends.
The doors to the elevator opened, and a delicious meaty smell hit me, nudging my stomach to rumble in appreciation.
This room was a huge open-plan space with support beams cleverly hung with interesting prints. A long table sat in the center of the space, lit by low-hanging overhead lights, and a modern functional kitchen made up the back of the room, complete with breakfast bar and stools.
The elite moved between table and kitchen with practiced synchronization, carrying plates and cutlery, huge bowls of stew, and plates of fragrant bread, but they all stopped to look at me as I stepped into the room.
My attention zeroed in on Serath like a homing beacon, and the nervous flutter in my belly turned into a different kind of flutter. The kind that spawned beneath heated touches. My breath hitched as our gazes snapped and locked.
He swallowed hard, and my stomach flipped in response.
“Welcome!” Prasan, the scholarly elite, approached me with a warm smile.
“You can sit here with me.” He pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the table from Serath, and I noted how Serath’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He didn’t protest, though; instead, he broke eye contact to place the tray of bread on the table before taking extra time to adjust it.
“Here you go.” Selas popped a plate in front of me. “Help yourself to food.”
It wasn’t the easiest thing to focus on the food with Serath in the room, but I did my best. There was stew, bread, salad, and some round dumpling-type things. “Everything looks and smells delicious.”
“Consider it a welcome meal,” Orix said. “We don’t always cook like this.”
“There’s a rota on the fridge,” Prasan said. “You’ll be cooking with me tomorrow.”
“We cook in pairs,” Selas explained. “For the team.”
“Makes sense.”
“Can you cook?” Prasan asked.
“I get by.”
“Prasan’s a great cook,” Orix said, “but a nightmare to cook with. So fucking precise.”
Prasan sniffed and lifted his chin. “The final product is worth the care and effort.”
“Everyone, take your seats,” Serath said. “Let’s eat.”
“Without me?” Willowman entered via a door on the far side of the room. Probably the stairwell.
His dark hair was windswept, kohl-rimmed eyes brightening as they took in the spread. He rubbed his hands together. “Smells delicious. I’m starving.”
“Take a seat,” Serath said.
Willowman shrugged his jacket off and flung it onto the breakfast bar before parking himself on the opposite side of the table to me.
Everyone left one seat between them, which was kinda needed because goyles weren’t exactly tiny.
I was cocooned between Prasan and Orix while Selas sat directly opposite me, between Serath and Willowman.
We loaded our plates, and the scarfing of food commenced.
The stew was thick with a tomato base and just enough spice to give it a kick.
The bread was soft on the inside and crusty on the outside, the perfect accompaniment to the stew.
The salad was crisp and fresh, and the dumpling things were delicious when dipped in the stew.
Plates scraped clean, we all loaded up a second time.
“How are you feeling now after the extraction run?” Willowman asked me.
“I’m fine. Bax, on the other hand…”
Willowman’s expression hardened. “The administration will be keeping an eye on Mr. Lowther.”
“He should be kicked out,” Serath said.
“There’s no evidence of his blackmail. All we have is Miss Basque’s word.”
“Which should be enough,” Serath growled.
“You know that’s not how it works,” Selas said evenly.
“ Hmmmmm …” Serath took a sip of his water, and our gazes clashed over the rim. My heart lurched, and I tore my attention away, dropping it to my plate. My pulse raced, and it took a moment for it to slow.
Focus on other things, Cam. Anything else but him.
But my mind was blank, my body thrumming with awareness of the male sitting opposite me.
“Cameron, didn’t you want to speak to Willowman about your tulpa?” Selas said.
Her words were a lifeline. “Yes. Um, I have a tulpa.”
Willowman swallowed his mouthful. “Right. It’s not usual for a goyle to have one, but you’re a halfblood, so—”
“No. I mean I have one. Here. At the academy.”
“Oh?” He set down his spoon, suddenly interested. “You created it here?”
“No. He’s been with me since I was a child, but he came here a couple of days ago.
After Ignus tried to compel me to go with him, Derek appeared and protected me.
He helped me to break free of Ignus’s control.
I wouldn’t have escaped otherwise. And after that, Derek was here, in my dorm room closet. ”
Willowman leaned forward, elbows on table. “And what kind of creature is Derek? What kind of tulpa?”
“A boogeyman.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he saved you?” Serath asked.
“I’d just found out my brother was alive. Derek kinda slipped my mind, but there’s something wrong with him. He’s…growing.”
Willowman frowned. “Growing?”
“His form is expanding, and he’s scared.”
“Your boogeyman is scared.” Willowman looked skeptical.
“Look, Derek isn’t like other boogeymen. He’s sweet and kind, and I love him. I need you to help me fix him.”
Willowman plucked at his napkin. “Standard protocol dictates we extinguish any tulpas born on campus.”
“What? No!” I sat up straighter in panic. “You can’t hurt him. I won’t let you.”
“He won’t.” Serath snarled.
If Willowman was threatened by Serath’s snarl, he didn’t show it. In fact, he didn’t even look his way, keeping his attention on me. “No. I won’t. Because your tulpa wasn’t born on campus. He somehow found his way in. I need to figure out how. These wards are impregnable.”
“Obviously not,” Orix said. “Your orb was tampered with.”
Willowman grimaced. “Which means we have a mole. An insider playing us. Nothing to do with the wards and everything to do with loyalty.”
Finding the traitor was up to administration. But Derek was my responsibility. “I don’t want you to hurt him. I just need him to be okay. He’s family to me.”
“I won’t intentionally hurt him,” Willowman said. “I swear it.”
I believed him. “There’s something else. Melanie, the ghost in my room, has been acting…odd.”
“Odd? In what way?”
I explained Melanie’s spaced-out behavior. “Ever since she broke into the confidential file room to get Romi’s file and—”
“What?” everyone said at the same time.
Ooops. Okay, they didn’t know about that escapade. “Yeah, I did a thing…”
I filled them in on Melanie’s file room break-in and what she said she found, along with her weird behavior ever since. “And that was the same night that Flora Yarrow was found unconscious on the same floor.”
Willowman chewed on his cheeks. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Surely, Romi’s file would have contained the truth about what happened to him,” Selas said.
“It would have been logged for sure,” Prasan said. “But someone obviously didn’t want Melanie passing on that information.”
“Someone must have messed with her memories,” Willowman said. “Fed her a false one and sent her back to you.”
“Someone who didn’t want the truth about Romi getting out,” Prasan said. “But that’s everyone high up.”
“They couldn’t have known who Melanie was getting the information for,” Serath said. “They were protecting it.”
All this conjecture didn’t help Melanie. “We need to fix her.”
“She’s dead, Cam,” Selas said. “There is no fixing her.”
It was the first time I’d felt irritated with the elite female. “Her body is gone, but her soul is here, and it’s in pain. That matters.”
Selas tucked her chin in. “I didn’t mean to sound callous. But we’re guardians, and our responsibilities lie with protecting the living. It’s where our focus needs to be. Looking into your tulpa’s evolution is enough of a stretch on our resources.”