Chapter 7
Seven
Elodie
The walls squeeze tight against my shoulders. No human being is meant to crawl into this cramped space.
There’s nothing around me but darkness, so thick I can’t even see the shape of my knees where they’re pulled up nearly to my chin. But that only makes it easier to focus on the faint tread of footsteps on the other side of the wall. The squeak of leather as my target sits on his sofa.
I have to aim all my attention at him. Direct my glim with all the will I have in me.
Let no one get hurt but him… and me.
The faintest vibration pulses against my chest from one vest pocket. That’s my signal.
My pulse thunders in my ears. It is going to hurt—it always does.
But I don’t have a choice. The thought of what would happen if I refuse chokes me, even more suffocating than the small, dark space.
I dip my fingers into my other pocket and retrieve the vial. Brace myself as I pop the lid. Toss the liquid back as quickly as I can.
It burns down my throat with the familiar noxious flavor like ginger lemonade gone rancid.
Then my stomach is on fire. The searing agony spreads through my belly and up into my chest before gnawing into my limbs.
I have to—I have to—
My body jerks, and my eyes pop open. I stare at the top of my canopy bed for several seconds before the sour ginger-lemonade taste fades from my mouth.
I’m okay. It was just a dream. A dream of real things, but—Uncle Nik doesn’t exist here. Not in Other Elodie’s life, anyway.
For a little while, I don’t have to worry about that one burden I’ve been carrying.
The duvet embraces my body with the subtle shift in temperature it’s enchanted to give off, gently cooling the flush of my distress. My pulse gradually evens out.
But as I push the covers away from my sweat-damp skin, my gut twists with the thought of the newer burdens weighing on me.
I still need to get back to my actual reality. To my matches, who must be getting increasingly frantic. To the world where I belong, even if an awful lot of it makes my stomach churn.
This isn’t my bed; it belongs to a dead woman. This isn’t my life.
I wrap my arms around myself, remembering the last embraces I got from each of the men I love. Then I set my jaw and start my exercise routine.
I won’t leave them hanging much longer. I’ll keep putting myself out there, making observations and asking questions, and someone will let something incriminating slip.
The second I figure out who offed my doppelganger, I’m out of here.
My determination fuels me through all my reps and a brief meditation, through breakfast and the ride to school, and through the inane chatter with Other Elodie’s friends until we split off for separate morning classes.
Then I walk into the Divination classroom, and my heart flip-flops between my throat and my feet.
Professor Colson Raith is sitting behind the vintage oak desk, his dark gray eyes fixed on the book he’s reading rather than on his arriving students. All six foot five inches of his leanly muscular frame sprawls in his chair with an air of disinterest.
I remember too well the chill that always passed through me when I’d walk into his class, the impression that he’d found all of us wanting before we’d taken our seats.
Even in his first year when he was only assisting the previous Divination professor, his voice held a permanent thread of impatience.
“Is that really all you can decipher, Miss Singh?”
“I—I’m doing my best.”
“It’s a shame some of you were never taught to take this subject seriously.”
Thankfully, yesterday’s encounters with my other…
past? future? …matches have honed my survival instincts better.
I hesitate for only a single, startled blink before tamping down the tug in my chest and following Cadance and Madison to the seats where I assume we normally sit.
My fingers curl against the sting in my palm.
As I settle into the chair with the scent of wood varnish prickling in my nose, I can’t help studying Cole from the corner of my vision. His chestnut-brown hair is cropped shorter than I ever recall it being. And is his complexion even paler than usual?
I should have been prepared to see him. It’s just that I’m not used to his presence at the academy anymore, because in my world he quit teaching within months of Asher’s death.
Asher was the only reason he started in the first place. Getting hired at Luminary guaranteed his younger brother a spot and discounted tuition they couldn’t have afforded otherwise.
It took Cole way longer than a few months to fully accept me as his match. But I guess that’s a green flag rather than a red one, considering that when he first found out, I was only seventeen and he’d been my teacher for four years.
An eight-year age difference between matches is almost as unusual as having four of them. Fate must have been high on shrooms the day she wrote my destiny.
Because it’s just my luck, I have two other matches in this class. With his usual self-assured stride, Byron walks over to a desk at the other side of the semi-circle of rows, right in front of me if I look straight ahead. And Asher has already tucked himself into a spot in the back corner.
It’s harder to look at him than anyone else. I’m better off pretending he’s not even here.
There’s only the one doorway, at the back and a little to the right of my seat. Not ideal if I need to beat a hasty retreat, but not awful either.
When the chime sounds to mark the start of class, Cole peels himself off the chair and casts a baleful glance around the room.
I should think of him as Professor Raith here. That’s what Other Elodie would have called him.
He folds his arms over his chest, drawing my gaze to the scuffed leather gloves that of course he’s wearing even now, just as every student in the room has their hands covered. No match sparked yet; no glim awoken.
I assume his presence at the academy means he took a similar path as my Cole did.
Despite his unawakened innate magic—and his background—we all knew from the moment he stepped into this room that he’s a force to be reckoned with.
He performed so incredibly in his studies at Beacon Prep that he convinced Luminary’s headmaster to hire him right after he graduated, even without an active glim.
From the rumors I overheard in my own reality, that’s never happened before. No one in this room would dare underestimate the man’s brilliance or talent.
His brisk, even voice draws my attention back to our studies. “Let’s not waste time. Get out your divination objects and pair off with someone you don’t normally speak to outside of class.”
My pulse hiccups for a totally different reason. Shit. I wasn’t prepared for this exercise. Other Elodie didn’t bother to write it down in her school notes.
I grope in my satchel for something, anything, that she’d have handled enough for it to hold a decent amount of her ephemera.
Not her phone—it might reveal too much of how I’ve been thinking and feeling while I’ve been using it the past few days.
My hand closes around a tube of fancy skin cream I haven’t so much as opened since I arrived. That’ll do.
It’d better.
When I set it on my desk, my friends have already gotten up. Madison moves toward a well-coiffed girl whose name I don’t remember.
Cadance casts a coy glance at Professor Raith through lowered eyelashes before heading across the room toward Byron.
My fingers curl with a twinge of possessiveness for an instant before I catch the urge. From what I’ve seen of Cadance in my reality and this one, she has no personal interest in Byron. She just wants the chance to prove her chops against Mr. #1 Rank.
The Worths are just as old-money and established lucents as any of us…
but most of Luminary’s students will never see Byron as a full equal no matter how he’s ranked, simply because of the shade of his skin.
They might be wary of his power, sure, but they’re not including him in all their little alliances and inside deals. They don’t see him as an ideal match.
That’s one of the main reasons he—at least, the Byron I got to know in my reality—works so hard to prove his own chops.
Plenty of the female students and a few of the guys give our professor similar come-hither looks to Cadance’s.
It was like that in my world too. Cole is incredibly intimidating and comes down hard on any sign of laxness, but that never stopped half the student body from gushing to each other about how incredibly hot and intriguing he is too.
But he’s mine. Mine.
I shake off the unwanted urge with a grit of my teeth. None of that should matter to me.
And I need a partner myself.
I scan the room and spot Simone Palenti standing alone and uncertain by a seat a few over from mine.
We were never exactly friends in my reality, but she was only a few rungs up the social ladder from me, so we sometimes made friendly long enough to get each other through situations like this.
Because she’s Salvatore’s second cousin or something like that, she was a little warmer at school after our matching.
Without thinking, I motion her over. Simone’s lips part with shock before she clamps them shut.
Bigfoot bite me. This Elodie would never have lowered herself to accepting Simone’s company. Is she going to think I’m pulling her chain?
Simone simply squares her shoulders beneath the studded leather jacket she’s wearing over her uniform and marches over to me. She drops into the seat next to me with a grunt. “Wanted to really mix it up this time, huh, Devine?”
Well, I don’t have to maintain Elodie’s reputation that much longer. I can stir the pot a little.
“Sometimes it’s nice to get a fresh perspective,” I respond.
She sets down her object with a thunk. It’s an ashtray—mottled glass, obviously heavy, and tacky as hell even to my unrefined tastes. Her gaze dares me to comment.