Chapter 9 – — Jace’s private notes
Chapter Nine
“She doesn’t freeze because she’s weak. She freezes because she remembers. If she’s ever going to be herself again, she’ll have to face the memory.”
— Jace’s private notes
“Get the heart out,” I tell Draven since Miles has already stripped off his gloves and Nyra refuses to touch anything.
“I told you the muscle was torn near the apex. He has a stab wound.” Draven pulls open the viscera bag nestled in the body cavity, sounding impatient.
“The average adult heart weighs 250 to 350 grams,” I say, not backing down. “Given this crawler is male, he should be on the higher end of that range. And since you said he was stabbed, I would expect that number to be even higher due to bleeding and inflammation.”
I wave my hands, gesturing for him to hurry up and pull it out for us to see.
“Your point?” Miles asks, folding his arms.
Draven lifts the heart from the bag, cradling it in his gloved hands and holding it out for me to examine. It looks wilted and shrunken.
“My point,” I say, “is that Nyra wrote down that this heart weighs 108 grams. That’s a fucking anomaly if I’ve ever seen one.”
Miles lets out a low whistle. “Oh shit. The human may not be useless after all.”
Nyra scoffs, but there is something else beneath it, surprise or reluctant respect. “How do you know all of that?”
I don’t bother answering her. These people are not my friends, and they don’t need to know about my past.
“You’re right,” Draven says, turning the heart over in his hands, studying it with new interest. “It does look small and thick. The walls are denser than they should be.”
I file that detail away and quickly fill out the rest of our sheet: cause of death, listed anomalies, organ weights, observations.
My pen moves fast, my handwriting messier than I would like but legible enough.
Draven places the heart back in the bag and draws the sheet over the body once more, covering the crawler’s ruined face.
“Time,” he calls out.
Our supervisor reaches over and taps the timing device beside her. The red numbers freeze, ceasing their relentless climb upward. She takes the chart and all the paperwork from my hands. Then she writes our final time at the bottom of the sheet. Ninety-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.
I didn’t completely fail my team, but I’m marked now as the human girl who froze, the one whose hand shook when the scalpel was placed in it, who couldn’t bring herself to cut into the body.
They don’t know why, and I don’t want them to.
It’s safe to say we lost this competition. By the time we hurry back into the room where the party was held, it is already full of students. Only two teams finish after us, so we’re not last, but closer to it than I would like.
“That thing was vile.” Lux shudders beside me, rubbing her hands over her arms as we wait to see who won.
Her team finished first, so the odds are in her favor.
“My father says we will dissect all sorts of twisted creatures in Architecture of Flesh. Something to look forward to apparently.” She wrinkles her nose.
“It’s my first class tomorrow, so I guess I’ll be skipping breakfast.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s my first class too, with Professor Nestor,” I say.
“Thank the gods.” She exhales dramatically. “At least we can help each other get through it.”
I’m glad I will know at least one person in my first class tomorrow, but unlike Lux, the idea of learning more about what twisted creatures exist out there doesn’t repulse me.
It excites me. Dissecting one sounds even more interesting.
I want to understand what they are and how they work.
I don’t know much about any of the fissure-born creatures.
I assume my parents never taught us out of fear of scaring us.
Or maybe they never believed it was something we would need to know.
I know they at least hoped that.
“It seems we have our winning team.”
Malric’s voice echoes across the room, and everyone falls silent. I straighten, my attention snapping to the front.
“Before I announce it, let me tell you all what the prize is.” He waggles his eyebrows and holds up four necklaces, the chains glinting in the low light. I squint to see what dangles from each one.
“Each member of the winning team will receive an Ashwell key. This is no ordinary skeleton key. It doesn’t open every door, but it can open any door, or shall I say any lock.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. I frown, suddenly confused.
“What does that mean?” someone calls out.
Malric smiles in a way that has me on edge.
“These four keys are as old as Ashwell Academy itself. They were forged in the very core of this school.” He begins to pace slowly at the far end of the room.
“The key will open something different for each of you. Always keep it with you, and it will open something when you need it most. The core current of the school will know. It will decide what that is when the time comes.”
Lux and I exchange a curious look, one of her eyebrows raised.
I can see why this is a coveted prize. The possibilities are endless. I can’t think of any reason I would need a key right now, but that’s the point. You don’t know what lock you need opened until you are standing in front of it I guess.
“As for the winning team,” Malric continues, gesturing to his fellow blood and breath classmates behind him, “we have all reviewed your notes and discussed each team at length. Time and teamwork did come into play, but ultimately only one team positively identified the crawler’s anomaly.”
My heart leaps into my throat.
I know I was right about that heart, but there could have been many more anomalies. Things we didn’t catch and didn’t know enough to look for.
“Draven, Miles, Maelis, and Nyra, come collect your Ashwell keys.”
I think I’m in shock. My feet don’t move until Lux shoves me forward with a breathless laugh, and I stumble after my teammates toward the front of the room.
Malric gives me another wicked smile as he places the key in my palm. Then he winks at me.
Gross.
I look down at the key, ignoring the crawl of discomfort his attention leaves on my skin.
It is threaded through a long silver chain, and the head of it is an oblong circle bisected by a single vertical line.
The metal is cold, heavier than it looks, and hums faintly against my palm. Or maybe I’m imagining that.
I slip the chain over my neck and tuck the key beneath my dress as the crowd begins to disperse. It’s late, and most people are either heading out to get some sleep before classes or drifting toward the drink cart for more alcohol and bad decisions.
I don’t look for Lux. She’ll be fine on her own.
Instead, I slip out of the building and weave through the thinning crowd, scanning faces and silhouettes until I spot him. Jace’s height and silvery white wings make him stand out even in the dark among the crowd of students.
“Jace, wait.”
He turns at the sound of my voice, his wings folded against his back as I catch up to him. The moonlight highlights the planes of his face, and I notice he looks as drained as I feel. There’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there earlier.
“There you are,” he says, relieved. “I was looking for you. I thought maybe you got ahead of me outside.” He falls into step beside me, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I can’t believe your team won. Are you excited?”
I glance around at the other students still milling about, their voices carrying through the cold night air as they make their way back to the dorms. “Can we go somewhere quieter to talk?”
He nods, placing a hand on the small of my back and guiding me away from the others.
We walk until the noise fades behind us, following an icy stone path that winds between buildings until we reach a low wall overlooking the grounds outside the bone year male dormitories. The cold has seeped through my dress and settled into my bones.
“Do you want to come to my room? Aren’t you freezing?” His breath leaves puffs of condensation in the frigid air.
“No, I’m okay for a few minutes,” I say, hugging myself tighter. My long-sleeve dress does little to keep me warm, but I don’t want to be in his room right now. This conversation can’t turn into something else.
“Here, this way.” He leads me through a back door on the ground floor of the dormitory and into a small room stuffed with linens and miscellaneous things you might find in a bedroom. Stacked furniture and piles of spare blankets that smell of dust and cedar.
“This is the supply room,” he says, and I raise an eyebrow.
“What?” he chuckles, holding his hands up. “I was exploring earlier. Don’t give me that look.”
He walks around a few stacked desks to a tall table and pats the surface for me to sit.
I have to jump up to get on it, but once I’m settled he grabs one of the folded blankets and drapes it over my shoulders.
The wool is scratchy but warm. He moves to stand in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asks, his voice soft in the dim, cluttered space.
“Your team had a crawler too?”
“Yeah.” He scrubs a hand through his silvery blond hair. “I’ve never cut into something like that before. The way the body looked reminded me of the thing in the forest that attacked us.”
“I know.” I tug the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“That’s all I could think about while we were in there.
” I chew on my bottom lip, the worry I’ve been pushing down all night finally clawing its way to the surface.
“I need to find a way to tell Briana and mother about the crawler. What if there’s a fissure near Ironfen? The whole village could be in danger.”
Jace shifts his weight, moving closer. “Listen, don’t worry about your family.”
“How can I not worry?”
“Because I already told my parents before we left. I told them everything about the guy that attacked us. I don’t know for sure if it was a crawler or some sick, crazed man, but they know.
And by now they’ll know that you’re at Ashwell.
” His hand finds my cheek, tilting my face up until I’m looking at him.
“They’ll look out for your mom and sister. They’ll be okay.”
I want to believe him. I want to let go of the knot in my chest and trust that everything will be fine, but I’ve learned the hard way that hope is a dangerous thing to hold too tightly.
“There’s something else you should know,” he says with some reluctance, making my stomach drop. “About the body.”
I swallow. “What about it?”
“I went back to examine it.” His thumb traces a slow line across my cheekbone. “But when I got there, it was gone.”
My eyes widen. “Are you sure you went to the right spot? Maybe you were confused.”
He shakes his head. “No, there was blood on the ground and drag marks leading into the forest. I followed them for a bit, but then I lost the trail.”
“That thing could still be alive.” I sit up straighter, my heart pounding. “It could have attacked someone else by now.”
“I don’t think it’s alive. There was a lot of blood, Mae. And the drag marks...” He shrugs. “I bet an animal took it up into a tree and ate it.”
I don’t know what animal would do that. A panther maybe, but those are rarely sighted near Ironfen. The explanation feels thin, like he’s saying it more to comfort me than because he believes it.
“Maelis.”
His hand is still on my cheek, his fingers tracing up and down in a slow, soothing pattern. I meet his blue eyes and find something there that makes my breath catch. Something that has nothing to do with crawlers or fissures or the danger waiting back home.
“I don’t want you to stress about this,” he murmurs.
“My parents are with your family. That thing is dead. And we have enough to worry about here with classes starting.” He tucks a strand of red hair behind my ear, his fingertips brushing the curve of my jaw.
“It’s going to be okay. We’re together.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I can.
“Mae.” His voice drops to something barely above a whisper. “I would never let anything happen to you or your family. You know that, right?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
His gaze lingers on my face, tracing over my features like he’s thinking something he doesn’t want to voice.
Then his eyes fall to my mouth. He’s closer than he was a moment ago.
I don’t remember him moving, but I can feel the warmth of him through the blanket, can smell pine and something faintly sweet on his skin like cinnamon.
For a moment, I think about letting him close the distance, falling into something easy and familiar that doesn’t require me to think about dead bodies and shrunken hearts and my father’s warnings scrawled in fading ink.
But I can’t when my head is so full of everything else.
I clear my throat and slide off the table, the blanket slipping from my shoulders. “It’s late. I need to get some sleep if I’m going to make it through our first day of classes tomorrow.”
I brush past him toward the door, my skin still tingling where his fingers touched my cheek. When I pull it open, I glance back.
He’s watching me with a soft smile, something patient and understanding in his expression. Like he knows and has been waiting all these years for me to finally see it.
“Goodnight,” I tell him.
He doesn’t say anything else as I slip out into the cold and make my way back to my room.
The hallways are quiet, most students already behind closed doors. My footsteps echo against the hard floors, and I find myself reaching up to touch the key beneath my collar. The metal is warm now, heated by my skin, and I wrap my fingers around it as I walk.
I need to find out how my father applied for me and what his connection is to this school. Why didn’t he tell me? How did he know I’d get in? Why am I the first human to ever be accepted to Ashwell, and what was that speech from the headmaster about?
Gods, I was too stunned to even think clearly in his office.
The way he looked at me, the way he spoke like he knew things about my life that I don’t even know.
How does he know anything about my father?
My father was a village healer. He spent his life treating farmers and merchants and children with fevers.
He wasn’t connected to magical academies hidden in the Frostlands.
Or was he?
I keep seeing the writing at the bottom of the acceptance letter scrawled in handwriting that didn’t match the rest. I keep playing them over in my mind. “Blood remembers what history forgets. Your father knows you are ready.”
What blood? Ready for what?
And if my father knew I was ready, why didn’t he prepare me? Why did he leave me with nothing but cryptic journal entries and questions I can’t answer?
I tighten my grip on the key until the edges bite into my palm.
He’s dead. He can’t explain himself. He can’t tell me what any of this means.
But someone at this school knows, and I’m going to find them.