Chapter Twenty-seven
Alexandr Miroslav
Everything afterwards was a blur. The slow and anxious wait as the investigation for the disappearance of the Kensington twins dragged on.
It was rather quick once they’d found the letters.
They were both eighteen, and even the highest level of police couldn’t continue a search of majors unless the family went private.
The detectives assigned the case had caused a commotion on campus when they began peeking their heads into classes or shuffling about the student lounge. They may have pulled aside some students, ones particularly close to the twins, but those were only rumors, Rain assured.
However, Thaddeus, after congratulating us, promised to handle anything on that end.
We may have passed one test, but we didn’t have the law enforcement in our pockets, unlike Thaddeus, to pass another. Besides, he only assigned this task to prove our devotion to the Society and the board.
A week into December, life seemed to finally return to normal. As normal as we could pretend it was, at least.
Classes paused for reading week, but the gossip didn’t.
Students whispered about the twins until something fresh and juicy filled their vicious tongues.
That happened to be the arranged marriage between Ivania Mikhaylov and a member of the Novikov family.
I hadn’t paid the future wedding much attention, having my studies high on my priority list.
Exams were coming up, and I was damned if I got anything less than a ninety percent in LAW 400; Mr Browne would be all too proud to tell me it was because of the classes I had missed.
By the second week of December, I was practically married to the library, though it seemed I wasn’t the only one. Assignments were closing in on their due dates and essays had to be handed in.
I was glad that Callum had postponed my joining the Queens Club until January, because I didn’t know how I’d find the time. I also wouldn’t put it past him to take up as much of it as possible just to sabotage my studies.
“There you are.” Wolf’s voice sounded from around the bookshelf he rounded. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“I’ve been here every day for the past week. Why would you look anywhere else?” I replied without lifting my head from the biography I was copying notes from.
Wolf chuckled. “That’s true. Who knew you could be such an academic?”
“I could be if you weren’t distracting me.” I fixed him with a stare before flipping to the next page.
He pulled an empty chair out from under the table I was occupying in the back of the second floor and sat down across from me. “I wanted to ask you something.”
I hummed and waited for him to do just that.
My eyes were drifting over the words in front of me, searching for a point similar to mine that I could provide as a suitable source in my research paper on how one could identify inflation in developing countries before it leads to inevitable economic collapse.
Because this was Castle Hill, I also had to come up with methods to resolve such inflation.
I wanted to bang my head against the table.
Dragging my attention away from my academic challenges, I heard the hesitation in Wolf’s voice and felt it radiating off of him, affecting my focused mind. “I can feel you thinking. It’s making my skin itch.”
He snorted. “Want to talk about this in my dorm, actually?”
I snorted in turn, knowing there wasn’t a chance he would let anyone into his dorm. I’d been so distracted with one thing or another that I hadn’t found the time to actually break in.
At his responding silence, I whirled at him, anticipation suddenly finding me, biography forgotten. “Are you being serious?”
A slow smile stretched across his lips and he nodded. “Yes, but if you would rather I leave you to study–”
“No!” I blurted out, collecting my books as quickly as humanly possible. “I was finishing up anyway. Let’s go.”
He laughed and stood alongside me.
When we reached his dorm, in record time because of how fast I was walking, I was practically bursting with agonizing curiosity.
What was he hiding in there? A dead body? A pet? An assortment of clothes he designs in his free time?
When he unlocked his door and opened Pandora's box, the only feeling I could describe was extraterrestrial. It was as though I’d stepped onto another planet, or perhaps it was the long-awaited reveal that made me feel that way.
He ushered us inside and closed his door, but I could only watch from the entrance.
His dorm was no longer a dorm. Of course, there was a bed and dresser and a desk.
But every surface possible was brimming with boiling flasks and the soft rumble of funnels.
There was a tray of vials and a shelf of glass jars, each a different colour and each with a different scrawl of labelling stuck to the front.
There was a large book held open against a stand in the middle of his desk, as if giving life to it all, pulsing with energy.
“Wolf…” I muttered before stepping closer, my curiosity pulling me like a thread.
A vague memory formed in my mind of something that had felt like it happened decades ago.
Of Wolf in the science lab, pulling out similar equipment to the ones littering his desk.
“I don’t understand. You’ve been… hiding your love for chemistry? ”
I understood why he might be hesitant to show this to anyone. The Quarter monitor might not be too happy about what his dorm looked like, and putting the dean aside, the matter would be taken to Rain.
The linear structure of my thoughts continued down a hypothetical series of events. Rain would, in turn, be reminded of Wolf’s past, the very reason for the obvious estrangement, and possibly send him back to rehab on assumption alone.
However, Wolf’s father passed, and unless Evander Kingsley returned into his brother’s life, he doesn't seem to have anyone holding his actions accountable.
I could be wrong.
A strained sound made its way out of Wolf’s mouth before he tilted his head side to side. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. But we’ll go with it anyway.”
He nodded, happy for the excuse and moved around me to brush off any further questions.
Like hell—he wasn’t going to keep me on edge all semester and then finally invite me in just for him to cast any questions aside.
When I moved closer, the remnants of powder and sliced plants became more apparent against the glossy wooden surface.
In between a flask and a tray of vials, I reached a finger over to swipe up at remains and take a whiff, wondering why plants would be the main ingredients in the liquids he stashed into labelled vials.
I couldn’t read the scrawls, and before my finger could reach anything at all, Wolf’s hand grabbed my wrist in a moment’s notice, tightening to get the point across.
Don’t.
I turned my head and met his eyes before moving my gaze to his fingers, causing rumpled folds against the arm of my uniform. My brows drew closer, a cautious furrow forming.
He seemed to have moved without thought, out of instinct, because he pulled his tight grip away, as if he’d touched a scorching coal, and reached up to scratch a supposed itch at the back of his head. “Er… Sorry, it’s just… I didn’t want you to get hurt. Lots of chemicals lying around.”
I narrowed my eyes at his shifty gaze and shuffle of limbs. “What do you really do here?”
Wolf paused, his lips taking on a contemplative purse before he sighed and waved a hand towards the table. “I trust you, Sasha, so I will tell you.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He only nodded softly and watched me. I raised a brow, my lips parting, jaw slacked in a mix of disbelief and judgment. “Are you really trying to stall right now?”
He blinked. “Oh! Sorry, I was waiting for a ‘why thank you, Wolf. You are too kind to trust me.’”
My mind seemed to falter.
Blank stare, blink, slow head tilt. “Have you… taken something?”
I never would have believed that Wolf, with all his self-restraint and holier-than-thou attitude, would fall back into old habits so subtly. Surely, I would have noticed.
Like you did with Paris?
I sent that thought into the abyss with an aggressive shove.
Wolf threw his head back and groaned, running his hands over his eyes, pulling the skin underneath along with them and giving himself a rather unflattering look. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I–... I practice toxicology.”
I reared back. “Poisons?”
Wolf nodded, eyes meeting mine when I seemed to know what he was referring to. “Yes, it’s a very respected practice, I’ll have you know, and if you have even a word of disagreement to even utter, you can keep it to–”
“I was not going to say a ‘word of disagreement’,” I said, lifting my hands up in air-quotations.
“Why are you so defensive? Marigold cuts animals for art. Ajax killed his best friend, Rain blackmails students for power, Paris… Well, Paris isn’t all that bad.
I think this,” I waved a hand around his desk, “might sit between August and Paris.”
I reminded myself to check in on August before returning to my dorm tonight. He didn’t try to let on, but I could tell that what had happened affected him more than he wanted anyone to know.
Every night, he’d shuffle into my dorm, which I began leaving unlocked for his sake, and throw himself onto my bed. The cigarettes I kept buying had become a habit entirely for him at this point.
It was why I began snapping them in half and blaming it on the packaging. Hoping it would force him to cut down on the amount he consumed. It was a loss on my end, having my stock depleted so mournfully quickly.
Whilst looking around at the room—trying to commit it to memory, since it might be the only time Wolf lets me in here—I heard a quiet, almost ghostly chuckle. Hearing it made me want to wince in a way I couldn’t explain.
I turned to him and raised a brow. “What’s so funny?”
Wolf looked back with an innocent look, scrunching his brows. “Nothing…”
I shook my head, wincing at the sudden pain at the crown of my head.
Wolf let out a breath, shaking his head and walking over to his bed to drop onto it, slumping over to the side in dejection. “You didn’t let me finish. Have you ever heard of Mithridatism?”
I parted my lips to answer but couldn’t find the words in my mind that would come out of my mouth. I only replied with a truthful, “No, I can’t say I have.”
Wolf hummed, tilting his head to watch me where I remained.
“Thought so, as ill-advised as it is. It’s the practice of protecting oneself from poison by consuming it yourself.
In small doses. I self-administer small, non-lethal doses slowly.
Upping the dosage when the effect proves useless.
Over time, your body builds up a tolerance and…
you can become immune to poisons. Well, it only works for some.
Others are either too strong or intolerable, no matter how small or large the dosage you start with is.
Your body would never have the right… tools to break it down. ”
I went to speak but couldn’t find anything to reply with. I couldn’t tell if he was looking for comfort and acceptance or advice. I closed my mouth and nodded, allowing myself the time to process the information he’d just given me.
We were silent for a few moments, and I slid my eyes to the contents on the table, allowing it to shine under a new light.
How clever.
How paranoid.
“No one sets out to build immunity to poison unless it is a method of death they are familiar with,” I said, dread filling me with what might come next.
Wolf tensed.
Oh.
He stood and met my eyes, his next words allowing me to raise a brow that almost stretched up and over my hairline. “I am. I’m fairly certain someone might try and kill me this break. And that is why I am formally inviting you to stay at Kingsley Manor over the holidays.”