Chapter 42
Maeve
THE CAMPUS IS SPRINKLED WITH snow. It crunches under my and Poppy’s boots as we walk across the grounds, our breath steaming around our mouths in the cold air.
The late-afternoon sky is a clear blue, the sun already making a slow descent toward the horizon, and the air is just cold enough that the snow and ice refuse to melt, clinging to the castle’s stone and the bare branches of the trees dotted around the courtyard.
My cloak rustles around my ankles, and Poppy and I pause to let two first-years run past, slinging snowballs at each other.
“Is it just me,” Poppy says, “or does it feel like there’s a lifetime of difference between us and the first-years?”
“Definitely not just you,” I say. Briefly, I think back to our first year here together. Everything was so new and so different. Alina wasn’t yet bonded to Raelan, Lyra was still setting fire to things accidentally, and Poppy was so quiet that it was hard to pull a full sentence out of her.
Now . . . Now everything has changed.
“I can’t believe our last first semester is almost over,” Poppy says as we continue our walk. We’re headed toward the Whim, Poppy’s favorite place on campus—even in the winter cold.
“Me either.” I glance down at her, with her soft lavender hair and the sunlight glinting off her glasses. And it almost makes me want to go teary-eyed.
I don’t know what I’m going to do without these amazing women around me. Alina and her royal eye rolls, Lyra and her dirty jokes, Poppy with her quiet curiosity and perfect cups of peppermint tea.
The four of us are a family now. But next year, we’ll all go our separate ways.
“Let’s not talk about it,” I say quickly. When Poppy glances up at me, I add, “It makes me too sad. And I don’t want to be sad today.”
Her smile turns soft. “Okay.”
We continue toward the Whim. Ivy wraps around the two stone pillars flanking the entrance, already losing its color and withering in the cold. But the hedges are still green beneath the layer of snow dusted over them.
I’ve never much liked the Whim; it’s semisentient and shifts at will, changing its paths and altering its layout. I have an illogical fear of getting trapped in it, forever lost, but Poppy has never been afraid. At least not of the Whim.
“Tell me again why you like this place so much,” I say as we step between the stone pillars and onto the worn dirt path, snow still crunchy underfoot.
Poppy shrugs. “I’m usually afraid of new and different things.
The Whim gives me a chance to face my fear of the unknown in a controlled environment.
” She flicks a glance up at me, her brown cheeks tinged pink in the cold.
“And I think it likes me too. Did I ever tell you that it led me to its heart once?”
My lips pull up slowly. “You mean the night you and Aric—”
Poppy holds up a gloved hand, halting me midsentence, her cheeks blazing red now. “Yes. That night.”
I love how bashful she still gets around us. It’s something I hope will never change.
“It’s not led you there again?” I ask as Poppy guides us through the Whim, traversing the twisting paths with no hint of hesitation in her stride.
She shakes her head. “No. Just that one time. Like it knew that night was special.”
“It was right, wasn’t it?”
Her only response is a deeper reddening of her cheeks.
I’m so glad things worked out between her and Aric. I would’ve had to kick my stepbrother’s ass if he’d ruined it.
We turn a few more corners, until I’m hopelessly lost. And after the bushes rustle around us, I turn to find the path back the way we came is closed off, with just a wall of frosted greenery to greet me.
It sends a little shiver over my skin despite me being bundled up against the cold.
So creepy.
“Oh, there it is,” Poppy announces.
I turn to see her cloak fluttering around a corner and hurry to catch up; I do not want to get lost in here without her. And when I step around the corner, I find that the Whim has led us to a small clearing with a stone bench wrapped in the same withering ivy as the pillars flanking the entrance.
Poppy brushes the snow off the bench with her gloved hand, then tucks her cloak beneath her and sits down. “Come on.” She pats the bench beside her. “I brought snacks.”
My stomach grumbles in response, and I hurriedly take the spot next to her, snuggling up beside her and peeking over her shoulder as she opens her bag.
When she pulls out a bundle and opens it to reveal chocolate chip cookies, I wrap my arms around her and press a big kiss to the side of her head, making her giggle.
“Have I ever told you that you’re the best and I love you? ”
She shrugs. “I know. And I love you too.”
We share the cookies—two each—and take turns sipping hot cocoa from the thermos Poppy brought along with her.
A breeze stirs the hedges, sending little puffs of snow swirling in the air around us.
And once we’ve finished our cookies and are down to the last few sips of cocoa, Poppy says, “You feel different now.”
I take one last sip from the thermos, then hand it back to her. “Different how?”
She looks at me—really looks at me, like she sees something on my face that I don’t when I look into a mirror. “Your static energy feels calmer.”
I arch a brow at her. “I was static before?”
“Well, not exactly.” She narrows her eyes a bit, like she’s trying to pick the right words to say. “It’s like the way you can feel energy in the air before a storm. But you were always like that. Like a living storm.”
“But I don’t feel like that anymore?”
She shakes her head, making her lavender hair swish around her cheeks. “No. Now it’s like . . .” She nibbles her bottom lip, then says, “Now your energy is like the air after a storm. Still electrically charged, but . . . calm. Like you’ve released the chaos. Does that make sense?”
I know exactly what she’s talking about, because I feel it in myself too. And it’s been there since the first time Severin fed from me. After his second feeding, the feeling only intensified. Even now, I feel something different lingering inside me, warming the space just beneath my sternum.
“Yeah. It does,” I say softly.
My eyes flick to Poppy again. She’s looking up at the sky, a slight upward turn to her lips. She’s the one who helped me when I was still trying to decide whether to ask Severin to feed from me. Maybe she can help me understand this change too.
“After Severin fed from me,” I say, and my words immediately catch Poppy’s attention, causing her to turn and meet my eyes, “something . . . changed.”
She tucks a wispy strand of hair behind her ear. “Between you and him?”
I shake my head. “No. Well, yes, but in a good way. But that’s not what I mean.”
Her eyes narrow. I’m obviously not making any sense.
“I mean something changed inside me. The shift in energy you’re talking about. Did it happen after he drank from me?”
Poppy seems to consider it. “I think it started before, but yeah, now that you mention it, the biggest shift I felt was afterward. What does it feel like? The change in you?”
I hold my mittened hand up to my chest, pressing it to the spot where I feel the warmth stirring.
“It’s like there’s this thread between me and Severin now.
Not in a bad way, but it’s there.” I think back to the evening I snuck into the staff wing, the ease with which I was able to find Severin’s apartment, even without ever having been there before.
“I think I’m connected to him in some way. ”
“Like Alina and Raelan’s mate bond?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how theirs works, but I can feel him. Even now, if I were to focus, I’m pretty sure I could find exactly where he is on campus.”
Poppy’s eyebrows arch in surprise. “That sounds like more than just a thread. That sounds like a bond.”
“Have you ever heard of something like this before? With vampires, I mean?”
Poppy nibbles her lip again, then shakes her head.
“No, I don’t think so. Vampires don’t have magic the way shifters do, so they don’t create mate bonds.
And even though a vampire might feel a connection after a feed, since they have another’s blood inside them, I’ve never heard of it happening the other way around. ”
I try not to let the disappointment show on my face, but I’m pretty sure Poppy picks up on it anyway.
“Sorry, Maeve. I could help you research it though. We might be able to find something.”
“Thanks, Pops. That would be—”
My chest squeezes uncomfortably, the thread inside me going taut. Without warning, a feeling of unease comes over me, tinged with an undercurrent of fear. My magic leaps in response, and a current of electricity zaps across my skin.
For a moment, I look around, as if my body has become aware of something that I’ve not. But all I see is blue sky and frost-covered hedges and Poppy beside me.
Then I realize something: It’s not my fear and unease that I’m feeling; it’s Severin’s. The certainty is immediate.
Something’s wrong. The thought hits me hard.
I stand abruptly, and Poppy blinks up at me, looking startled. “Wh-what is it?”
“I need to go find him. Now.” I look left and right, at the two pathways back into the maze. “I think something’s wrong. Can you show me how to get out of here?”
“Of course.” Poppy quickly packs the thermos into her bag, and then we set back off through the maze, this time with my heart beating a little faster in my chest as I follow behind her.
The thread pulls at me, steady and insistent, urging me along.
I’m coming, I think, trying to send my thought out to Severin, though I know that’s not how this works—whatever this is.
The fear pulsing through the bond doesn’t waver; if anything, it feels like it’s settling in, digging its claws deeper.
And as soon as Poppy leads me out of the Whim, I break into a run, letting the pull guide me.
To him.