Chapter 11
“Arden? Arden!” Gwen hissed at me from across the classroom, earning a glower from Professor Skinner, who eyed the pair of us beadily from behind wiry spectacles.
From his perch at the lectern, he looked like some tropical bird of prey in a ghastly puce-green sweater.
Not wanting to give Skinner an excuse to dole out the punishment I knew he was all too keen to bestow, I hastily trained my eyes back on my textbook.
My distraction was born of last night’s unexpected run-in with August. Running over the encounter in my mind, I had completely forgotten I was supposed to finish mapping out Alexander the Great’s conquests in Babylonia before the end of the period.
Like nearly all of Skinner’s assignments, this one was dull to the point of inducing somnolence.
I darted a grimace toward Gwen and tried to refocus on the words on the page in front of me.
The text claimed that Alexander’s empire ultimately fell due to his paranoia over imagined threats to his reign, executing nobles over mere suspicions.
Alexander had major trust issues, and who could blame him?
Being the ruler of such a vast and enviable empire would make anyone look over their shoulder.
Trust was a fragile thing. Exquisite, rare, and all too breakable.
And yet Alexander’s inability to trust anyone had been the thing that unraveled him and destroyed the empire he’d fought so hard to build.
After everything that had happened over the last few weeks, I couldn’t help but empathize with the former King of Macedonia.
August’s warnings reverberated around my skull.
You shouldn’t trust him.
Who’s to say he won’t destroy you in the process?
To suggest that Casimir was not only untrustworthy, but also callous enough to let me die in order to achieve his own ends regarding Devereaux was disturbing, to say the least. But after the way August treated me this past year, after all of the lies and secret liaisons, how could I place my trust in him?
And then there was Casimir with his shadowy evasiveness, the small yet unmistakable signs of deception in his expression; the way he held himself, his shoulders stiff and stony, as if afraid that releasing them would cause the secrets to spill from his skin.
You are the last person who should go anywhere near the Bloodthorn Order.
Casimir knew more than he was letting on—that I was almost sure of. Whether he was prevaricating for my benefit or for his own was to be determined. Like Alexander, sooner or later I’d have to decide who to trust.
One week after my run-in with August, I returned to Ash Hall after class to find a note tucked into the brass letter slot on my door. I stared at the parchment for a moment and then unfolded it to read a message scrawled in a slender, elegant hand.
No more slacking off. We need to train. Name the time and place.
—C
Well, I supposed his leaving notes was preferable to him popping up unexpectedly at my usual haunts.
I crumpled up the message and shoved it into my pocket.
Fuck that. I had no desire to repeat last week’s disastrous training session.
But the next evening when I returned to my dormitory, exhausted and drenched from trudging across the grounds in the sleeting rain, I found a second note waiting for me.
Giving me the silent treatment, huh? I guess you just lost your choosing privileges.
Friday, seven-thirty p.m.
Obscurus Room One, The Labyrinth. Don’t be late.
My temper getting the best of me, I scrawled out an obscene reply on the back of the note and shoved it back into the slot.
I slammed the door shut behind me, not caring if the noise disturbed my hall mates.
Who was he to command me like some petulant schoolgirl? Choosing privileges. What an utter ass.
Friday arrived. For the whole afternoon, I was embroiled between two warring desires.
Part of me wanted to stand him up. Just picturing the furious expression on his face the moment he realized I wasn’t showing up brought a devious smile to my lips.
But as much as it humiliated me to admit it, I also felt an irrepressible, niggling desire to see Casimir again.
Everything about his seductive smiles and potent glamours spelled trouble, but an irresistible part of me wanted to give in to my impulsive curiosity; he was a lure and I was caught on his hook.
You’re just curious to find out what was going on with the Order, I told myself.
Evening approached, and I set myself up in a quiet section of the stacks and began plodding my way through a mountain of homework.
As the third hour of the Babylonian wars approached and my eyelids began to weigh heavily, I became desperate for a distraction.
A dark pulse shot through me at the thought of seeing Casimir again.
With a resigned sigh, I shot up two flights of stairs and headed toward the Obscurus Room, where Casimir was already lounging in an armchair.
“You’re late again,” he announced as I took my seat. Tonight, he wore his usual dark jeans and black leather jacket, though he’d opted for a charcoal gray T-shirt instead of a black one.
To prove that I didn’t give a toss about being late, I kicked my feet up onto the table and leveled him with an icy look. “I don’t appreciate being summoned.”
He eyed me warily, probably analyzing my foul mood and determining how best to circumvent a tantrum. Something in my demeanor must’ve told him not to take my attitude too seriously, because he gave an unconcerned shrug of his shoulders.
“You’d be the first to complain,” he drawled with his typical arrogance.
I scowled. “Summon a lot of women then, do you? How horrible for them.”
It was a weak retort, but his presence made it difficult to think clearly. For all my determination to be a dagger in his ribs, the moment I was in his presence again, I was utterly disarmed. Hence the reason I resorted to being rude. What was wrong with me?
He shot me a cryptic smirk, but whether it meant I had guessed correctly or not, I couldn’t say.
Sometimes, his amber eyes trapped me and refused to let go.
They hooked me like a fish on a line, and it was all I could do not to squirm away under such scrutiny.
Casimir leaned forward in his chair and my tattoo prickled dangerously.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he accused.
“You know our dormitories have telephones, right?” I said waspishly. “So you can stop leaving cryptic little messages in my letterbox.”
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “I assume the reason you’ve been avoiding me is that you’re less than thrilled to continue training.”
“Not everything is about you.”
A hint of a smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Isn’t it?” he murmured.
I fought to look anywhere but into those eyes. “Maybe I just didn’t want to waste my time with this,” I retorted. “It’s not working!”
The look he gave me could have melted steel. “And what makes you think I’m here to waste your time? If anything, you’re the one wasting mine, acting like a petulant child.”
My jaw fell open in outrage. “I am not—!”
He raised a hand to quell my argument. “Spare me your false indignation,” he cut in. “I will assume, based on your presence here tonight, that you have decided to ignore Sinclair’s warning, at least for now.”
I opened my mouth to retort, and then closed it, unable to deny the truth of it.
“Fine,” I conceded, sliding my feet off the desk and leaning in to glare at him.
“But no more using memories about August.” I set my jaw, not caring that both of us knew what this was: merely my petulant attempt to cling onto my remaining last kernel of dignity.
“There are plenty of other memories to choose from.” Though I was loath to admit it, the thought of what else Casimir might unearth in my mind set my teeth on edge.
He nodded. “I concede that I chose the memory in part because it was packed with emotion. I will try to avoid using memories with Sinclair in future.”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. So, he had selected that memory with a purpose in mind. “How did you know which memory would get the kind of response you wanted?” I asked.
Casimir glanced away and ran a hand through his curly shock of hair. Probably buying himself time before he had to give an answer. He fixed me with that flinty gaze that reminded me so much of cold, hard obsidian.
“When someone like me summons the magic required to sway emotions, it is first necessary to glean insight into the mind of the target,” he explained.
With some difficulty, I digested this piece of the puzzle. “Is that your convoluted way of saying that you—what? Infiltrate your victims’ minds before selecting a memory?”
He winced at my use of the term victims, but replied, “Essentially, but it’s more nuanced than that. I try to get a feel for their underlying emotions or even their mental state.”
I took a deep breath to calm the panic threatening to seize me. Casimir had done more than simply witness a memory; he’d plundered me for vulnerability. It was a violation worse than I’d anticipated.
“So, what you’re saying,” I said slowly, “is that I should be even angrier with you than I was at the Grotto?”
He merely gazed up at me from beneath his dark lashes.
“Don’t you realize how violated that makes me feel?” I said.
“Not as violated as you’ll feel when Devereaux next glamours his way into your mind, commanding you like a dog,” he ground out.
“He’s made slaves of many before you and will continue to do so long after you are gone.
Don’t think for a moment he’ll hesitate to violate and use you in whatever manner best suits him. ”
His warning clanged through me, hammering its truth into my bones, even as a louder, buzzing anger filled my ears.