Chapter 23
Maeve
TAKING A CARRIAGE BACK TO the academy is much faster than walking, and when we pull up in front of the castle, with its soaring towers and stained glass windows, I’m suddenly very grateful that Severin gave me the fare for the ride.
I pay the driver, then step out into the rain.
It slowed a bit on the ride here, but it’s still coming down steadily, enough to make me pull the hood of the cloak up as I make a quick dash across the soggy ground and up the stairs to the massive double doors.
Standing in the entrance hall, I shake the rainwater from my borrowed cloak, and the marble floor beneath me dries immediately; it’s enchanted that way.
If it weren’t, I’m sure this hall would be injuries just waiting to happen during the winter, when students traipse in and out with their snowy boots all day long.
With a sigh, I start through the castle, ignoring the curious looks I get from passersby, probably because I’m still wearing my skin-tight black dress from Samhain last night.
Severin’s cloak smells of him, like night air and whiskey and old books, and I have the urge to bury my face in it as I start up the winding staircase of the north tower.
Raelan is standing outside—like usual—when I get to room NT33. His eyes look tired today, and I immediately wonder how late he and Alina stayed up last night, probably breaking all the rules in his room until early this morning.
One of his dark brows arches in what looks like impressed surprise, and I give him a small victorious smile before opening the door and stepping into the dorm.
A fire is crackling in the hearth, and the room comforts me immediately; this place has become home over the last few years, and Alina, Lyra, and Poppy are like sisters to me now.
Sisters who all look up from what they’re doing when I step into the room.
Poppy holds a book in her hands, a cup of tea on the side table beside her; Alina is eating what looks to be a blueberry muffin; and Lyra is watering the potted moonflower on the windowsill.
“Well, well, well,” Lyra says, breaking the silence first. She disperses her water magic with a wave of her hand, then turns to face me. “We were just starting to wonder if Professor D’Arques kidnapped you away to his vampire castle.”
“I wish,” I say, slowly peeling my boots off and removing Severin’s cloak. I hang it on the hook by the door, my fingers lingering on the fabric for a moment before I join the girls in the sitting room.
“So, does this mean it went well?” Alina asks. “Oh, do you want one of these?” She points to the platter of muffins, then loads two onto a plate when I nod.
“Thanks,” I say when she crosses the room and hands the plate to me. I take a bite of one, and it’s still slightly warm—they must’ve gotten them in the dining hall this morning. “Mm, this is good.”
“As good as last night?” Lyra asks, flashing me one of her mischievous smiles.
I take another bite, then shake my head. “No. Last night was way better.”
Lyra laughs, then flings herself onto the couch next to Poppy, making the book bounce out of her lap.
“Hey!” Poppy says as the book thumps to the floor, the page she was on getting lost in the shuffle.
But Lyra just plops her head into Poppy’s lap, like a cat demanding attention with no regard for what you’re doing.
Poppy sighs, but her lips pull up into a smile. She picks up one of Lyra’s bouncy red curls and twirls it between her fingers. “You’re a nuisance, Lyra Wilder.”
Lyra grins. “But you love me anyway.”
Poppy shakes her head, but her smile gets a bit bigger.
“So,” Alina says as she takes a seat next to me on the couch and pulls her knees into her chest, her bare toes peeking out from beneath her long skirt. “Is there anything you want to share?”
I feel all their eyes on me. Hesitating, I take another bite of the muffin.
I’m not shy—talking about sex isn’t uncomfortable for me—but for the first time, I’m feeling a bit unsure about it, like if I share everything that happened between me and Severin, I might somehow inadvertently curse it.
And I really don’t want to curse it.
But with the way they’re all staring, I can’t give them nothing. So I settle for, “It was . . . amazing.”
The girls give one another suspicious looks.
“Who are you, and what’d you do with the real Maeve?
” Lyra asks, pointing a finger at me. She’s got a small smudge of dirt of the side of her hand, probably from caring for that moonflower.
When she first planted it with a seed Cairn gifted her, I thought it’d be dead in a week.
But she’s somehow managed to keep it alive for a whole year.
I suppose even fire witches can sometimes be gentle.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Poppy says.
Lyra’s lips pull into a pout, and her forehead furrows. “Why?”
Now they’re all back to staring again.
“Because,” I say after finishing off the first muffin, “I’m afraid I’ll hex it.”
Lyra rolls her eyes dramatically, and Poppy gets that glimmer in her gaze that means she’s probably about to teach me something.
But I quickly hold up a hand and say, “I know, I know, that’s not really how hexes work.
” I sigh, setting the plate with the leftover muffin onto the side table next to the couch.
“It’s just . . .” I pull my legs up and draw my knees into my chest, like Alina. “I don’t want to mess this up.”
Alina tips her head, looking thoughtful. A small smile crosses her lips. “You really like him.”
I nod once. “Yeah. I think I do.”
Something cool brushes my skin, and I look down to see Isis making her way across the couch and up my arm to my neck.
“Welcome back,” she says as she curls around my throat, where just last night Severin’s lips were. The memory makes me swallow hard.
“I’m gonna go take a bath,” I tell the girls.
They let me go without more questions, but I can tell they have them. In time, maybe I’ll share more. But for now, it’s like I want to keep Severin close to my chest, where only I can know him.
Up in the loft, as I gather what I’ll need for a bath, Isis hisses, “You are unsettled. I feel it on your skin.”
I pause what I’m doing and glance at myself in my vanity mirror. I’m still wearing last night’s dress, my makeup is smudged beneath my eyes, and if I look close enough, I’m pretty sure my lips are still swollen from kissing Severin.
Sighing, I sink onto the bench in front of my vanity. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I tell Isis, keeping my voice down so the girls won’t hear me. “I’ve never felt like this after sex before. Usually, I’m fine. But I feel . . .”
I search for a word for this feeling swirling inside me, making my chest feel tight and heavy.
“Sad,” Isis says simply.
With a sigh, I nod. “I don’t get it. Everything went well. So, why do I feel like this?”
Isis uncurls herself from around my neck, then slithers down my arm.
I hold my hand out so she can move onto my desk, where she twists herself into a coil and rises up to look at me.
“You feel like this,” she hisses, “because you care. Have you cared about any of the others you’ve shared yourself with? ”
At first, I almost tell her yes, that I cared about all of them. And I guess that’s true, in a way.
But not like this. Not like how I feel about Severin.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You are lying to yourself.” Isis flicks her tongue at me.
I bristle a little at that, sitting up straighter. “No, I’m not.”
Her slitted eyes stare back at me, unwavering. I’ve learned over the years that she has the patience of an old forest, and I’ll never be able to outstare or outwait her.
“You are,” she repeats. “You have enjoyed others. You have wanted others. But you did not carry them back with you the way you’ve carried this one, like a treasure made of glass, something you’re afraid to shatter.” Her tongue flicks out again, and I break eye contact with her.
In the mirror, my reflection stares back at me. I grab my brush and start to glide it through my hair, but the feel of the strands slipping through my fingers reminds me of him, of how his hand felt at the nape of my neck, his lips and breath on my throat.
Isis shifts slightly, her glossy black scales whispering against the wood of the vanity. “Your storm is quieter today. It feels . . .” She flicks her tongue out, tasting the charge in the air. “Content.”
Content.
I suppose I feel that too, under the layer of sadness trying to weigh me down. My mind flashes back to this morning, to the fear I felt when I woke up to find Severin no longer in the bed beside me. But then I felt such relief at seeing him beside the fire, and my whole body reacted to it.
I’ve never cared if the person I was sleeping with was next to me the following morning. More often than not, I’d leave while they were asleep or send them home the night of. But not Severin. I wanted him right there, close enough to touch, to smell, to hold.
“This feels dangerous,” I whisper to Isis.
“For whom?”
“For me.” I press a hand to my chest. “I have plans. Goals. The fellowship, the Arcanum Collective. I thought this was just going to be a brief thing between us, but . . .” I clench my teeth. “I can’t throw everything away because I’m tangled up with my professor.”
Isis makes a thoughtful sound, and I get the feeling she’s about to impart her wisdom upon me.
She’s been helping me keep my head on straight since we met all those years ago. And I’m not sure how I would’ve made it through my teenage years—or losing my dad—without her.
“You speak as though love and ambition cannot share the same body.”
I jerk upright, startled by her use of that word. “Okay, one, I’m not in love with him. And two, they usually don’t. Not without one stifling the other.”
“You’ve experienced it, then? Love?”
The way she asks it, so directly, I know exactly what she’s getting at.
I deflate. “No.”
“Yet you know, hmm?” She slithers up the carved wood of my vanity and drapes herself over the mirror so she can look directly into my eyes. “Or is this your fear speaking?”
Isis has a thing about fear: facing it head-on, not letting it influence or control you.
My fingers drift to my throat, where Severin’s lips were, and I feel my pulse.
I’m not afraid of you, I told him last night.
And in that context, it was true. I might still be getting to know him, but I trust him in a way that feels instinctual, and my magic draws me to him time and time again, reaching for him in the way that plants reach for sunlight.
But now, I realize that I am afraid of him. I’m afraid of falling for him—falling in love with him. And I’m afraid of what that might mean.
Isis lets out a small hiss. “You are afraid of wanting something you cannot easily walk away from. Something you cannot control.”
Walking away has always been my strength; until now, I’ve been able to walk away from anyone I’ve ever met. But when I picture walking away from Severin, or him walking away from me, my magic flares, like a storm is building just beneath my skin, wanting to lash out violently.
Again, I meet my stormy eyes in the mirror. And this time, something like determination stares back. “I don’t want to walk away,” I say.
“Then don’t. But do walk carefully, Maeve.”
Carefully. Not fearfully.
There’s a difference.
I take a breath, then let it out in a big sigh, trying to drain out all my spinning thoughts and emotions.
“Thank you,” I tell Isis, holding out a hand. She presses her head into my palm and lets me trail my fingers over her glossy black scales. “You always know what to do.”
Her laugh comes out in a hiss. “So do you. Sometimes you just need help getting there.”
This makes me smile. “Right now, I know that what I need is a bath.” I stand from my vanity, then look back at her. “You want to come?”
She considers it for a moment, then nods. “I could use the steam.”
I hold my hand out, and she slithers into my palm, then up my arm, where she wraps around my neck.
As I gather my things for the bathhouse, a realization settles inside me: This thing I have with Severin isn’t a passing curiosity or fascination; it’s real, and it feels like the beginning of something, a path I’ve never walked before.
And though I don’t know what’s waiting for me at the end, I’m going to follow it anyway.