Chapter 33 Hate To Admit #2
I release his chest and scan the ground as if searching for a grain of rice, but really, I just can’t force myself to look at him, to see how he responds to this futile piece of information about me.
Lucian’s silent for a moment.
Then, he says, “I like thinking that I was the only one to notice something about you. Even if it was something as small as the thirty-three freckles on your face, or as significant as knowing your truth.”
Thirty-three freckles? He told me that once. Does he remember, or did he count them again? The fact that anyone counted my freckles shocks me. They were always a point of contempt—no Folk liked them. Sun freckles aren’t proper. They’re the opposite.
And Lucian counted them.
My nose burns, my eyes sting, and three stupid little words rack my brain until there’s nothing else in there. I miss you. I miss them all. How strange it is to miss someone who’s touching you. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. But when I look up, he smiles at me, his dimples on full display.
There’s no way this is a falsity.
I think he’s going to kiss me, and I think I want him to. This is real. He’s falling for me again—truly.
Behind me, I twist the doorknob anxiously, trying to get away. What does it say about him if he likes this version of me?
“Althenia.” His voice is low.
“No.” My voice shakes. “I can’t have you… if I can’t have all of you.”
All our memories. All that we were. I can’t handle him not knowing.
“Very well.” Lucian nods, stepping forward and knocking on the door.
Elva opens it for him, blocking me when I try to step out. But she lets Lucian go.
?
Hogan comes into the infirmary the next day. He sits in the chair Lucian sat in, staring at me.
I stare back. He lets out a dramatic sigh.
“Ms. Althenia,” he says slowly. “Please attempt to explain yourself.”
I have nothing to say. Is he talking about Jermoine? Belle? I’d like an explanation—how in the worlds did Jermoine grow his arms back?
I shake my head.
“Nothing?” Hogan says.
My voice is low. “No.”
“You threw a knife inches from my face. You tortured a student and then bled out without cause, losing enough blood that your survival is nothing short of miraculous. Just after, an unprecedented storm swept across the world of Visnatus, tearing down its natural forests. And most damning, according to Fleur’s accounts of the day the girls’ wing collapsed, you were having a sort of…
episode. So go on,” Hogan leans back, one leg crossing over the other, hands settling on his knee, “attempt an explanation.”
I open my mouth. There’s nothing I could possibly say. Hallucinations and lost memories and the Soul Ruby. That is the explanation.
“What… do you think happened?” I ask slowly.
“I’d call you one of two things.” His gaze is heavy. “Septic scum or Arcane.”
I inhale, not meaning for it to sound so stilted. He must have read the headmistress’s notes about me.
I try to laugh it off, but it’s a little too late, a bit too breathy, and not at all humorous.
“Heed my advice, Ms. Althenia. Leave Visnatus before I find the absolute truth.”
I have nowhere to go. No way to leave. What will he do if I stay?
Hogan rises to his feet and walks to the door. As he opens it, he says in a flat voice, “You are free to go. Hopefully, you take the opportunity to go far.”
?
When I leave the infirmary, I see the storm Hogan mentioned for the first time. Outside the school windows, lightning strikes and thunder booms loud enough to shake the floor.
Hogan insinuated it started right after I interrogated Jermoine and Belle. But how could blood magic start a storm? It has to be coincidental, just like the school collapsing.
At every turn, I look over my shoulder for Hogan. He could be watching me right now, waiting to find out how I’m starting storms. But that’s the least of my worries. He knows I’m Arcane. I wonder if the batty old headmistress wrote that in my notes. How convenient for him.
Maybe I should just leave. But the Soul Ruby. The memories. If I leave now, I will never get another chance.
I make it back to Breck’s old room, lay in bed, and stare at the spinning ceiling.
My head spins from the blood loss, and I’m angry about it. But when Fleur enters the suite, I sit up.
“What did you tell Hogan—”
She throws a long, black slip on the bed.
I glance down. “What is it?”
“A dress,” Fleur says.
“Why’d you put it on my bed?”
“Because the tag has your name on it.”
I wiggle my way toward the dress. My name is written on a little beige slip. There’s no note or explanation, but it seems someone got me a dress. Probably Headmistress Constance. I’m wearing her glasses, after all. I unzip the slip and pull it out.
The dress is different from any of the others. Long and black, it billows dramatically at the waist. A slit cuts sharply between the legs, revealing a hint of crimson fabric beneath.
Fleur sits across from me on the bed, shoving something into my chest. Instinctively, I reach for it. A notebook.
“It’s done,” she says.
I flip through the pages, filled with words in the common language. This could be the translation of the book Lucian gave me—but I’m not sure if I need it anymore. The Soul Ruby is either in the academy or Ilyria.
“But the book”—I shake my head—“it was in our room when it collapsed.”
“No,” Fleur says sharply, as if she can’t stand being in the same room with me, let alone having a conversation. “It was in our room when it burned. Somehow it stayed intact. You can explain that after you explain what happened to Eleanora.”
Fleur walks away before I can respond, returning moments later. She shoves something else into my chest—harder this time. The book. It reeks of smoke, yet not a single page is charred.
Fleur stares into my soul.
An eye for an eye—or a translation for a truth. I promised I’d tell her. I knew it would come to this.
“She was possessed by an Arcane,” I whisper, and Fleur sucks in a breath. It’s hard to look her in the eye. To see the pain I caused. So I don’t. “The day the monsters broke the barrier… I killed her to stop the Arcane.”
I burnt Eleanora’s face, then I burnt her body.
Fleur’s eyes widen, and she clasps a hand over her mouth. I get it. She’s been waiting for Eleanora to walk through the door. Now she knows she never will.
Fleur leaves and doesn’t come back. I’m left alone in Breck’s room. Does everyone know he was killed? Are they constantly clawing for an answer they thought they once had?
When I read the journal, I see Lucian and Wendy lied to me the whole time. I expected it. They need the Soul Ruby, but maybe they should never get it. The whole book is about Amun bringing Eira back to life… but he couldn’t die. Just like I can’t.
He had the same hallucinations I do. But something worse happened to Eira.
The laws of death aren’t clear cut. I see that now. The longer a body stays dead, the further detached their soul becomes. Amun didn’t realize, not who he was bringing back, but what.
Only one thing here is certain: balance isn’t benign.
It’s an eye for an eye. Zola never cared to make her universe a good one; she wanted it to be a just one.
If Lucian brings Azaire back, he’ll die, because unlike Wendy and me now, he’s not immortal.
Then his soul will pay the price of whatever Azaire becomes.
Suddenly I’m glad we don’t have the Soul Ruby, because bringing another soulless corpse back to life doesn’t seem worth the cost.