Chapter 22 #2
Without waiting for my reply, he bolted from the corridor. I stared after him. Why was Monty lying about how he’d hurt his hand? And why was he acting so strangely?
The answer was obvious.
Casimir.
As though my accusatory thoughts had the power to conjure him, the devil himself appeared a moment later. Or should I say, the Daemon.
“Casimir!” I shouted across the empty corridor. Somewhere outside, a raven cawed indignantly at the noise.
“Good evening, Farrow.” He inclined his head to me in greeting. The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips as he took in my fiery mood. “What’s up?”
At that moment, I couldn’t care less how he’d found me, only that he was here and I was furious with him. “You promised me!” I hissed.
Casimir’s answering expression was smug. He knew exactly what he’d done. “Promised you what, exactly?” He schooled his features into an expression of divine innocence.
“You went after Monty! Don’t bother denying it, I just ran into him, and his hand is clearly broken.”
“I wasn’t going to deny it,” he replied, smirking in that arrogant, self-satisfied way of his.
“Yes, I broke the little fucker’s hand. I never promised not to hurt him.
” He rolled his eyes at my accusatory expression.
“Come now, Farrow, I couldn’t have him going around assaulting women all over campus, could I? ”
I lost what little restraint I had left as my temper exploded. “Don’t you get it? You just risked exposing yourself, you moron!”
Casimir merely rolled his eyes, as if my reaction was entirely unwarranted. “Any number of people might’ve broken his hand,” he drawled. “He’s not as popular as he would have everyone think.”
But I refused to relent. “Did you mess with his mind, too? He claimed he was hurt in a sailing accident.” I knew Casimir hadn’t tampered with Monty’s memories, but I didn’t care just now.
Casimir scowled. “I didn’t alter his memories in the slightest. If he’s lying about how he came to hurt his hand, well…” He shrugged. “That’s his prerogative.”
I huffed in frustration, folding my arms over my chest. “You are being impossible, Casimir. You can’t just go around breaking people’s hands—”
But Casimir cut in. “Answer me this, Farrow. Did he deserve it?”
My lips opened and closed, but no sound came out.
Seizing upon my temporary inability to speak, he stepped closer. His eyes appeared darker in this dimly lit corridor; a deep, swallowing obsidian that pulled me in.
“You know he deserved it,” he insisted.
I couldn’t deny the truth of his words, so I settled for shooting him a menacing glare.
He leaned in closer. “You do realize that I could have made it so much worse for him, don’t you?
” he murmured, reaching out to tuck a loose curl behind my ear.
A stygian darkness crept over his features, drawing the smooth planes of his face into sharper relief.
“He’s lucky all he got was a broken hand. ”
I shivered at the light touch, so at odds with the threat of violence in his tone.
Neither of us mentioned Monty Prescott again on the walk back to Ash Hall. Following Evren’s assault on me in the biology classroom, Casimir had insisted on seeing me back to the dorms safely.
While we discussed the looming problem of the Order, Casimir insisted that the safest path forward was to hide the Book of Erebos from Devereaux’s prying eyes for as long as we needed to interrogate it for information.
“Speaking of Devereaux,” I said as we tread across the frost-covered grounds, “What else can you tell me about him? Aside from his family history, I mean.”
Casimir was silent for a moment as he considered.
“Aside from his ambitions where his birthright is concerned, Devereaux is quite… possessive. And it’s more than the entitlement that comes with being an aristocrat.
He truly covets what he cannot have. Perhaps losing everything at a young age exacerbated that unfortunate quality. ”
“He called himself a collector,” I recalled. My lips twisted in disgust as I recalled the way the butterfly had twitched as Devereaux drove pins through its wings. “He doesn’t care who suffers, as long as he gets what he wants.”
Casimir nodded absently.
“What about the Book of Erebos?” I asked. “Devereaux’s bound to try and steal it before the full moon.”
“I’ve already accounted for that,” he clipped. “On the eve of the ritual, we’ll destroy it.”
“You want to destroy it?” I repeated. “That’s your solution?”
He cast me a sidelong glance. “Yes, why?”
“Well, what about the sprite?”
“What about it?”
“Won’t it… die?”
He shrugged. “It’s a sprite. I suppose it would merely find a new vessel to occupy.”
I fell silent as dread coiled low in my belly.
Casimir’s plan was entirely too flimsy, too vulnerable to errors.
What if Devereaux stole back the Book before we could destroy it?
Evren, with his green eyes and fists, was bad enough, but the idea of pissing off Devereaux, a Siphoner with a sadistic streak and a proclivity for torture, made my stomach churn.
On Thursday morning, I awoke to paroxysms of delight from Gwen, who emerged from the hallway with a slim package under her arm.
“It’s for you!” she trilled, tossing the package onto my bed. Attached to the package was a note, scrawled in delicate, slanted cursive.
Consider this a peace offering.
—C
I ripped open the package, sifting through a pile of delicate white paper. My jaw fell open.
A dress exactly like the pale blue silk one I’d worn to Bryce’s party unfurled, but unlike the ruined dress, this one was pristine and shimmering.
Stunned, I held up the dress to show Gwen what the package contained.
“Whoa,” Gwen gasped as I offered it to her for inspection. She looked as incredulous as I felt. “But, my mother bought that dress on a trip to Paris!” she said, her eyes wide as she examined the soft fabric. “Where the hell did Casimir find it?”
I frowned at the note. “How do you know it’s from him?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh, come on. Who else would bother going to the trouble of finding a replacement? He spent nearly three days hovering over you while you recovered.”
I flushed.
“You never did tell me how you got blood all over it in the first place,” she added, wrinkling her nose. “But at this point, I’m afraid to ask.”
I offered her a weak smile in answer.
She tossed the dress back to me, its shimmering fabric catching the light in midair before it landed in my hands. The silk rippled over my skin like water.
I shot her a quizzical look. “Do you want me to hang it up for you?” I offered.
Gwen laughed at my daftness. “This is clearly a gift for you, Arden.”
When I continued to gaze at her in bewilderment, she rolled her eyes and released an impatient huff.
“Arden. A beautiful boy went to a lot of trouble to get this exact dress for you. He wants you to have it! Besides, that shade of blue isn’t really in my color palette,” she added with finality.
I stared at her, and then down at the exquisite dress. “Gwen, are you sure? I mean, I ruined the original dress. And as you said, it’s almost one-of-a-kind!”
But she only nodded her head more firmly.
“I don’t deserve you, Gwen,” I said, almost laughing in disbelief.
“Arden, you’re like the sister I never had,” she said seriously, and then her expression turned positively mischievous. “But I’m sure you can make it up to me sometime.”
I offered her a conspiratorial grin. Gwen was the one person on earth I didn’t mind owing a favor.
She was unable to conceal the way her cheeks reddened as she asked, “Did you happen to see Neha at the party the other night?”
“No, I didn’t see her. I mean, I don’t think she was there.”
She nodded, satisfied with my answer, but her smile fell as she examined me. I’d recovered from the effects of the poisoned wine, but I knew she saw the way my eyes were shadowed by rings of exhaustion.
“Did you ever find out who drugged you?”
“No,” I lied, once again grateful for the fact that no one else shared my strange ability to detect deceit.
“Honestly, I was lucky Casimir was there. He got me out before anything… happened.” It was mostly true, if you didn’t count my scuffle with Zhara.
And my sudden collapse onto the dining room floor.
“And do you…” Gwen gulped. “Do you trust him? Casimir, I mean.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. Why would she ask me that? To buy myself some time, I moved to the wardrobe to hang up the dress. The truth was, I didn’t know if I could trust him. Unconsciously, I scratched at the brand concealed beneath my jeans. “I think so,” I said finally.
Gwen nodded, but her eyes were still brimming with questions as she examined the note attached to the package the dress had come in. “Did anything happen between you two at the party?”
I kept my expression carefully neutral as I replied, “Nothing of note.”
A big fat lie, but by now, I was in far too deep to start telling the truth.
“And he’s… nice to you?” she pried.
Nice? Was the Darkseer nice to me? It was nice when he’d brewed me an antidote to the poisoned wine and hovered over me until I recovered.
But was it nice of him to magically tattoo his name on my thigh as part of our bargain and without my prior knowledge?
Was it nice or gentlemanly when he’d glamoured an elderly librarian to get out of trouble for smoking?
He certainly wasn’t nice to August. Rather, he was quite open in his disdain for my ex’s foolishness in involving himself with the Order.
I think Sinclair never deserved you, he’d once told me.
Casimir’s moral code was dubious at best. He’d broken Monty Prescott’s hand after he’d dared to lay it on me without my consent. Likely, he’d have done worse if he could’ve gotten away with it. I wondered, had Casimir killed other Daemons?
A louder voice in my mind shouted over all the others. Monty had deserved it. He deserved worse for the things he’d said to me that night.