Chapter Eighteen
She knew how dazed she seemed the next day. She could see it in the mirror over the dresser—her eyes were suddenly too large
for her face; her skin looked so pale it was almost translucent. But it still shocked her when Professor Cobble stopped her
in the hall, as she made her way to Hargreaves’s next no doubt horrifying lecture.
“My dear, is everything well?” he asked and in so kindly a way she almost spilled all her worries.
The only way I seem able to emotionally connect with magic is when a potentially murderous vampire fills me with lust, she thought.
And now I’m pretty sure everybody here wants to kill me for snatching a prize they think they deserve.
But instead of saying that, she stretched a smile over her face.
“Couldn’t be better. Just been burning the midnight oil,” she said.
Then in reply she got an arm squeeze, and that soft, absent-minded smile of his, and him bustling off down the hall. She followed
him with her eyes, almost wistful for what she could have had there. An actual adult in charge, to confide in and look out
for her.
Because god knows there wasn’t another.
She got to Boundaries and Bureaucracy two minutes late, and Professor Hargreaves looked at her like she had crawled out of a hole in the ground.
Her thin, graying face seemed to get thinner and grayer; her cool gray eyes were suddenly chips of ice.
“Well,” she said, as Mina took her seat.
“I suppose the golden girl no longer believes she must be on time for her lectures.”
And everyone in the room tittered.
Some turned back to stare in that same cold way.
She felt pretty sure the seat next to hers suddenly bursting into flames was not an accident. She had to take the trip she
needed to the library with a singed sleeve. The smell of burning hung in the air, as she flicked through old yearbooks and
records and any accounts she could find of the last girl to ring the bell.
But all she got for her trouble was a tiny picture in The Harrowhall Gazette’s records, in the aftermath of the event. Lilibet in the center, fairly clear, and enough like her that she could understand
why someone might squint and think so. The same billowing curls and waves of dark hair, similar big brown eyes. Something
in her expression that seemed familiar, from a thousand looks in the mirror. More beautiful, of course, much more beautiful.
But yes, it was there.
However, the man with her—she could see what that being had meant.
Kindness shone out of his face. It radiated from his being. She could almost imagine the warmth Lilibet must have felt, from
the look he was giving her. And it made any resemblance to Harker very hard to imagine. It softened out every edge, every line. Made him seem like so utterly a different man that she couldn’t
imagine anything as mad as a monstrous double, living just beneath his skin.
It just didn’t make sense.
And she couldn’t find anything else that made it add up to something.
No sign of a secret sibling he might have had, no connection to the man she knew.
No hint of anyone like him lurking in the backgrounds of their lives, watching their every move.
In fact, there wasn’t even a hint of their untimely deaths—despite the fairly reasonable record keeping she uncovered, for the era she now knew they had lived in.
Late eighties, it seemed like.
But there was no listing for Lilibet. No listing for Bram.
You were supposed to save me from sinking even deeper into being seduced by him, she thought sourly, at the books piled around her.
The books said nothing back.
She left with less than she had started with, and so late for dinner with Anaya that she completely forget to go change her
blouse. And of course Anaya noticed immediately. “Did someone try to burn you?” she whispered over bowls of asparagus soup. “Just because you won that thing that makes you amazing?”
While all around them people stared, and made faces, and basically answered the question for her friend. “Honestly, it wouldn’t
be so bad if it had done that,” Mina replied, as she poked at her food. “But I still can’t conjure much of anything.”
“I’m sure you will once you’ve spent some time snogging fen.”
“I don’t think snogging is possible with beings that have no faces.”
“So you’ve been there already? You’ve been there and seen?”
“Only for a little while. And I didn’t get far.”
“You went alone, then.”
She had been chasing a swirl of sour cream around her bowl, with her spoon.
Now she looked up at her friend. And sure enough, there it was, all over her face.
The barely concealed glee at the thought of digging up some juicy details.
“Yes. But honestly if you ever want to—” she tried, just to dodge having to explain everything that happened, without really
explaining it all. However, all she got was a hand wave. And a slightly pointed, you-know-what-I’m-asking look.
“I know you would take me. But I think you get that’s not what I was asking.”
“Harker didn’t come with me. He stayed in his room, while I went through.”
“And after you came back out? And you were alone with him, in said room?”
Anaya raised one eyebrow. Leaned forward, in the exact way Mina would have loved, if this was a real conversation about being
with a guy. It was the kind of thing she’d dreamed of, in high school. The world of cool hookups, and being able to actually
talk about them afterward.
Only this was a bizarre bloodthirsty hell, instead.
Mixed with something else she couldn’t explain.
And it made her protest too tensely.
“We didn’t do anything. I was just helping him.”
“So he was trapped inside his clothes, and you lent him a hand escaping.”
“Not out of all of them; he had his trousers on the whole time I was there.”
Fuck, she thought, the second she saw Anaya’s cheekily satisfied expression.
She had confessed too much, without intending to. Now, in her friend’s mind, the guy she had danced all night with had ended up half naked in front of her. And it wasn’t as if she could explain. She couldn’t say: well, he ripped out of his shirt due to lust for my blood.
All she had were weak denials.
“Things are not like that between us. Really not like that.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re not.”
“He hates me.”
“I bet he does. That’s why he danced with you like that and couldn’t keep his eyes off you and is also now sauntering over
to talk to you, with what can only be described as a desperate hunger in his eyes,” Anaya said, voice so thick with amusement
that Mina thought nothing of taking it that way. She even went to snark back that he would never.
But then she followed Anaya’s gaze, aimed just over her shoulder.
And there he was. The bane of her existence, doing exactly what Anaya had said. Strolling in a way that made his hips roll.
Focus all on her, despite the many people who tried to get his attention. The only deviation from Anaya’s description was
in those eyes. It’s not that kind of hunger, she wanted to say to her friend.
But of course she couldn’t.
She just had to sit there and wait, silently, for whatever this was going to be.
An embarrassing horror she imagined, about a second before Harker spoke.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said. And warmly, too.
He looked right at Anaya and actually smiled.
So of course Anaya smiled back.
“Well, good morning to you, too, Harker. Can we help you with something?”
“Actually, yes. Perhaps you can persuade Mina to eat something more than a bowl of soup. Because as delicious as it looks, I don’t think it’s really going to make up for the exhausting night she had.”
“Yeah. I thought she looked pretty spent, too.”
Anaya winked at her. She tried not to wither and die.
And that was before Harker tilted his head in that a-killer-blow-is-coming way of his. “Well, you know. I do tend to wear out the company I keep,” he said, and of course she knew he was doing it to keep the charade alive. She knew
this was only cover. Yet somehow, it still knocked her sideways.
Her face flamed briefly red; she came close to making a sound of shock.
I thought you didn’t want anyone to think that, she wanted to say.
While they just carried on. “Oh, I’ll bet you do. She’s probably going to need steak and chips, after you,” Anaya said, as
if the half-naked confession had unlocked some friendship setting Mina hadn’t understood.
Now everything was innuendo.
And other harrowing things.
“I was thinking the same thing. How about extra bloody, for that kick of iron? You know. To really get some color back into
your cheeks,” Harker said, as he turned to her. But apparently, looking wasn’t enough.
He reached and touched her there, too.
Just with one curled finger, barely making contact.
But god, the effect it had. Suddenly her whole head was a mass of those strange memory flashes—and every single one of them seemed
incredibly rude. A hand running down from her face to somewhere between her legs. That kind version of him, making her go
up on her toes.
And even when she managed to force those flashes back, there were other things determined to take her attention. The blood. The bed. That tongue of his, licking over his upper lip. It all washed over her, one thing after another, until she could feel the glow around her hands, beneath the table.
She had to force it down for the first time, before she started rattling the cutlery. And then somehow answer like a normal
person. “My cheeks are fine,” she managed to grind out. But even after that, he didn’t let up.
“Well, that mysterious flush has certainly helped. But they still look a little pale, to me.”
“I’m going to make you go pale, if you don’t shut up.”
“And I’ll shut up when you eat,” he said, as the food he’d obviously had in his head arrived. He set it down in front of her,
instead of the soup. Then came very close to nudging her arm. “Go on, get stuck in. It looks delicious.”
How would you know? she wanted to say.
And apparently, she would soon get the chance to.
Anaya had stood up. For the guy she had enjoyed at the ball, waving at her across the room. Frank, Mina knew he was called.
Though that obviously wasn’t the only reason she was exiting stage right. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, as she gave
Mina a one-armed squeeze.
So now she was alone with the university version of Satan.
He sat across from her, very satisfied with himself.
“You know I had just managed to convince her that we did not have sex,” she said. Much to his amusement. He gave her a little faux frown, as he
leaned back in his seat. And when he spoke his voice was almost musical.
“I thought you didn’t mind if people imagined we did. Or have, many times.”
“Yeah, I don’t mind people thinking that. But my friend is a different matter.”
“Because it’s only her opinion that could make you ashamed of it?”
“Don’t say it like anything actually happened. I fed you. Nothing more.”
“Fed and nothing more makes it sound like you did what I have just done—ordered you a plate of food you’re still not eating. Instead of what actually
happened: you came pretty close to sparing me a horrible death. And at great personal risk, I might add. I could have killed
you.” He shook his head, almost disapproving. Most likely ready to say more things designed to throw her. Only then he seemed
to stop, and his eyes dropped to her arm. “Though it seems I might not be the only attempt on your life around, if the smell
all over you is anything to go by. Did someone actually try to set you on fire?”
“Not exactly.”
“That means yes.”
She looked away. “I don’t see how you figure that one.”
“Because I know you by now. Always trying to hide how hurt you are.”
“So then you are aware of the amount of damage you do to me.”
“Of course I am. It sinks in deep, every single time I land a hit,” he said, just as offhandedly as he’d been about everything else.
He even did things as he spoke—took up her knife and fork and started cutting up the fat, sizzling steak on her plate.
She was still sitting there, baffled and uncertain of how to respond, when he skewered a juicy piece of it, and after adding a glossy coating of sauce, offered the handle to her insistently.
Maybe he’s just actually grateful for what you did, her mind suggested, as she fought to figure out if she should take it. But before that thought could settle, she answered
her mind back, Either that or one taste has him desperate to fatten me up.
Though she took the fork, as she finally replied.
“You say that like it’s you getting stabbed,” she said. A happy medium, she felt, between snark, and the space for him to
confess why he kept saying things like that. But he dodged it soundly, as he forced her to eat another forkful.
“Stop trying to change the subject. Someone set you on fucking fire.”
“They set the chair next to me on fire. And Hargreaves eventually put it out.”
“So she took her time, then. She let you suffer a little first.”
“It wasn’t like that. She meant no harm.”
“Yes, but someone did. So let’s start with who.”
“I don’t even know why it matters. He’s no more mean than you.”
Come on, she thought. Explain yourself. Admit the ruse behind your concern and your almost sorries. And of course, he gave her nothing. “It was Sebastian, then. Or his friend, Jude. The one without a chin.”
“There’s now a chinless guy out to get me?”
“Everybody is out to get you. It’s honestly exhausting keeping up with them all. I almost knocked out that boyfriend of your
little buddy this morning, when it seemed like he was getting in good with her to get to you.”
“For god’s sake, stop acting like you care.”
She didn’t mean to say it so loudly. Or slap the table when she did.
It just happened, and to the point where everything went suddenly quiet.
They all stared in a way she didn’t think they’d dared to at first. Harker St. James did whatever he pleased, and you didn’t
act like you were paying a gossipy sort of attention to him, unless you wanted trouble.
Yet somehow, she had managed to overcome that.
And it made his face turn cold. Dead looking, it seemed.
“I think blood loss is making you read too much into things. Now eat your food. You’re going to need your strength for our
next lesson—how to avoid being set on fire. See you at six tomorrow, bookworm,” he said, tone so smooth and icy she could
have skated across it.
Then he stood and walked away.
After which, she cleared her plate.