Chapter Ten #3
him. This was something he meant. Something he felt deeply, in a way that most likely had nothing to do with her.
This place made him angry, too, quite clearly.
He just played the game of it, for his own ends.
Though he tried to cover that up a little, once the words were out and ringing in the air. He took out that silver case again
and drew out one of those cigarettes. Lit it, in that same casual, “I don’t care” way he had the other day. But of course,
even that said something now.
It helps him stay cool, she thought.
And filed that information away for later. “So I just need to . . . be joyful,” she said, as if she’d never clocked any of
this at all.
“You need to strongly feel whatever best connects you to magic.”
“But how do I know what does? How can I possibly discover that?”
“The same way you would anything else. Learn. Try. Test it out.”
He waved the hand holding the cigarette, and she got a wave of that scent.
Familiar somehow. Though she shook it off.
“I can’t just test out different emotions,” she said.
Much to his scorn. His eyes practically rolled out of his head. “Of course you can. Think of whatever sparked it when I had
you on that stone table. Loathing, most likely. Think of something that you loathe.”
“You. Looking at me with that smug face. While probably tricking me.”
“I am tricking you. And then I’m going to laugh when you fall flat on your face. In fact, all of us will; we’ll stand around you
in a circle, jeering and crowing. And nothing will stop us, not even when you cry. That might even make us wor—” he said,
all of it so suddenly awful it caught her off guard. The words just built and built, each one better designed than the last
to strike at her heart, until she broke.
She cut him off, before he could say another word.
“Stop it, you horrible beast,” she spat.
But of course, as soon as she had, she knew.
It was there, in the way his expression immediately dropped from vicious to completely neutral. He hadn’t been serious at
all. He had just been trying to goad her into fury—and it had worked. She could still feel her heart pounding in her throat.
Her face was burning.
And it burned hotter when he spoke.
“And? Anything happen for that?” he asked, casual as you like.
“You could have just let me come to it on my own.”
“Why, when I can fill you with disgust just by blinking wrong?”
“That was hardly a blink. That was fucking horrible.”
“Well. Horrible is what I am. I don’t know what else you expected,” he said in a way that made all the sense in the world. But strangely, for a second, she found herself wondering. Why had she just said that to him; why had she just accused him of being horrid?
It almost sounded like there was some other way he could be.
Even though he always was. There was no other way to see him.
“I expected some skill. That did nothing,” she said.
And he nodded. He went back to the point.
“Then it isn’t loathing. What else did you feel when I was over you?”
“Terror. I was terrified,” she said. Though she didn’t think back to it, when she did. She couldn’t think back to it. She
never thought back to it. And if he was going to . . . “But don’t you dare try to make me feel that. I will stab you if you do.”
“What if I do it from over here?”
“I don’t see how you’re going to manage that.”
“It’s probably wisest not to challenge me, bookworm.”
He kissed the cigarette to his lips. Let smoke coil out from between them. It hung like a veil over his face, almost obscuring
his expression. But not quite, not quite. She could still make out that hint of feral threat.
She took a step back because of it.
Yet all he said was, “Perhaps I should tell you a scary story.” Then before she could tell him that was a ridiculous idea,
that she had grown up on tall terrifying tales and none had ever stirred her, he drew out his wand. He flicked it in a particular
way, and a chair slid across the room from the side, to slot behind her.
She sat, without knowing if he had made her or not.
And he began. “Once, there was a girl, a student here, called Lilibet. And she was very bright, and very courageous, and very . . .” He paused, almost like he had gotten a little lost in the story already.
But then he seemed to shake it off and continued.
“She was very lovely. So lovely, in fact, that she attracted the notice of something no sensible person should ever want the notice of. A shadow built from the bones of a broken thing. But unfortunately for Lilibet, she barely noticed the breaks—and she welcomed it in.”
“Because she was kind. Because she had a kind heart.”
“Kindness is just foolery, wrapped up in a pretty bow.”
So edgy, she wanted to sneer. She probably would have done so, too, if it hadn’t been for his tone. It sounded so dull and off it
made all the sensitive points on her body prickle and bristle. Suddenly, she found herself leaning forward, muscles tensed.
“It didn’t seem like such a terrible mistake on her part, at first. Shadows can seem very like other more ordinary and decent
men, that you already know. They can call up familiar traits, familiar feelings, to inveigle their way into your life. And
they are so charming, so sincere seeming. When the shadow gave her a gift of green velvet ribbon, she took it without even
thinking twice about it. She wore it gladly, around her pretty throat.”
“Like in the story.”
“Exactly so.”
“The one where she takes it off and—”
“Everyone knows the rest. She knew, too. But she thought she was safe—because of course she didn’t have a secret like that.
She wasn’t the one keeping anything from him. If she ever took it off, she thought, there would just be what had always been
there underneath,” he said, his voice getting softer and softer. And was it her imagination or was the room getting darker
and darker?
No, it couldn’t be.
But she could hardly see him now.
It was like she was dropping into an abyss.
“I don’t think I want to hear the end of this version,” she said, her own voice even fainter than his. Far away almost, and so plaintive he had to listen.
Instead, he carried on.
“Until one day, she decided she wanted to see. He warned her not to, but it seemed so silly to worry. So she pulled the end
of it and watched it unravel, and there underneath was not her own hidden ruin. It was the ruin he had wrought on her all
along. The wound he had made deeper under cover of that velvet darkness, over every single day she had let him draw close
to her, in seeming sunshine. All her life held in, until she pulled that thread. She pulled it and wore a waterfall of blood,
for the rest of her life,” he said. Then after a long, dark moment, he seemed to lean in close. “Are you terrified yet?”
To which she went to say, No, of course not.
Only somehow her eyes were closed. Her hand was on her throat, as if to keep that waterfall in. As if to hold her head on
her neck, while the feeling of losing that fight got stronger and stronger. She’s drowning, she found herself saying, she’s drifting away to that shadowy place.
And when she did, her voice was full of tears.
She didn’t know why. She didn’t understand any of this.
It seemed as if he was making her feel it maybe—but then she heard his voice.
The snap of his fingers. Mina, he was saying.
Not bookworm, not some other snide insult.
But her name, her actual name. Mina, Mina, Mina, come back, come back.
Come back to me. She even thought for a second that she felt his hand on the back of her neck, on her arm.
Like someone trying to lift a body out of a lake.
Like he could drag her out of this.
But it wasn’t him that managed.
It was the sudden ring of the breakfast bell, loud even down here in the bowels of the school. It clanged out, just as she
thought she might sink into that oblivion forever. And when it did she snapped back to reality, like she’d never been anywhere
else. She took a breath, and looked up to the place she was sure he was.
But he hadn’t moved.
He was still over there by the stage.
Staring at her, with that flat expression all over his face.
“I guess terror didn’t work,” he said, as he eased himself out of the half-sitting position he’d been in. “Oh, well. I suppose
we shall just have to try and make you feel the right thing tomorrow.”
Then he simply strolled out.
Leaving her stranded, spent.
And not sure she could ever do anything like this again.