Chapter 14 – — Professor Renn, Mortal Limitations
Chapter Fourteen
“The dead leave more behind than bones. They leave questions that haunt the living.”
— Professor Renn, Mortal Limitations
The campus is quieter now. Most students have already made it back to their dormitories, eager to bond with their new eidolons and process what they witnessed tonight.
I walk alone, Poppy tucked inside my cloak.
She snuggles into my side, gripping my sweater with her small hands.
I imagine she doesn’t get cold like I do given all her fur, but I keep her tucked inside anyway.
I’m almost to my building when I hear a muffled sound coming from a narrow alcove tucked between two pillars.
I squint into the night, the snow coming down in flurries and sticking to my eyelashes. I quiet my steps and move closer until I see two figures pressed against the wall, tangled together in the shadows.
I shake my head, holding back a giggle. From what Elizabeth and Ellavee insinuated, people hook up at Ashwell all the time. I guess there’s not a lot to do when you’re in the middle of nowhere, plus it’s a pleasure you can seek out when everything around you is so emotionally draining.
I start to walk back toward my dormitory’s front door when I hear a whimper and sounds of a struggle.
“Stop. Please, let me go.” I hear the sob underneath it. The fear.
Without another thought, I run toward the alcove and shove the larger figure from behind with everything I have. “Get away from her!”
The guy stumbles forward, caught off guard, and the girl slips free. I only catch a glimpse of her face, wide eyes and a streak of lavender in her dark hair. Then she’s gone, running into the darkness without looking back.
Not much of a thank-you.
I’m alone now as Malric turns around. His eyes glow red in the dark, bright and menacing. He looks at me the way a cat looks at a mouse it’s already caught.
I move to take a step back, turn, and run, but he grabs my arm and yanks me toward him.
“Well, well.” He rolls his shoulders, unhurried. “The little human playing hero.”
I stand up straighter, lifting my chin. “She said stop.” I bury the fear somewhere deep where he can’t hear it. “That means stop.”
“Does it?”
He steps closer. I step back until my spine hits cold stone.
Shit.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Red.” His wings unfurl behind him, dark gray and leathery like a bat’s. They curve around us, blocking the moonlight, caging me in shadow. “Unless you are ready to take her place.”
“Get off me.”
His hand comes up and tugs my hood down. Fingers run through my hair. They trail down my neck, and I want to scream, but it won’t do any good. No one would hear me with the storm howling around us.
“I’ve been curious about you,” he murmurs, pulling me tight against him. His breath is hot against my throat and reeks of liquor. “What human blood tastes like. If it’s as sweet as they say.”
His tongue drags across my neck.
Poppy shifts up my side, pokes her head out of the cloak, and sinks her teeth into Malric’s hand.
He wails and jerks back, shaking his arm. “What the fuck?”
I bring my knee up hard between his legs.
He doubles over with a grunt, and I shove past him, running. My boots pound against the snow-covered stone, and I don’t look back.
I reach my building, duck inside, and take the stairs two at a time. Once I hit my floor, I press my back against the wall to catch my breath.
My whole body is shaking.
Poppy crawls up to my shoulder and presses her face against my cheek. I can feel her worry. Her anger. Her fierce little heart beating in time with mine.
“Good girl, Poppy,” I whisper.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest. I need a weapon. A real one, something sharp that will make the next person who fucks with me think twice.
I run my hands down my face and force myself to breathe. After a few minutes, I get to my feet. Poppy stands beside me, studying me with her round, knowing eyes.
I don’t want Jace to see me upset. The last thing I need is him going after Malric and getting hurt or causing more trouble for me. Malric reeked of liquor. Maybe he won’t even remember this tomorrow if I’m lucky.
Poppy sits back on her haunches, her plump little belly and fluffy face tilted up at me.
“Okay, not a word,” I tell her.
I know she doesn’t speak and isn’t going to tell Jace anything, but maybe eidolons can communicate somehow. I have no idea how any of this works yet.
She rubs her face with her tiny hands, and I take that as a good sign.
I walk to my door, and Poppy waddles alongside me.
“Mae.”
Jace is in front of me as soon as I step inside. He’s changed into sweats and a loose shirt like he’s planning on sleeping over.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” He cups my cheek, searching my eyes.
I shake him off and move farther into the room. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”
I can practically feel his stare on my back, heavy with questions I don’t want to answer. I need to change the subject before he presses more.
“Where’s your bat? Is it a he or a she? What’s its name?” I ask, pulling the wardrobe open and grabbing some shorts and a button-up sleep top.
“His name is Flick, and he retreats when I don’t need him.” He crosses his arms. “He’s not a pet you bring out to play with.”
I scrunch my nose at him before pushing into the bathroom to change.
He sounds like a grouch. Poppy is adorable, and I’m going to let her do whatever she wants.
I come out of the bathroom in my comfy clothes and find Poppy in a pile of pillows on the floor next to the bed, munching on some crackers I had stashed from earlier.
Her tiny hands hold the cracker as she shovels them into her mouth, and it’s ridiculously cute.
Tiny crumbs keep falling down onto her belly, and she grabs them and eats them too.
“You don’t have to feed them, you know. They don’t need food to survive.” Jace watches her with one eyebrow raised.
“She clearly enjoys it.” I shrug. “I’ll let her eat the whole box.”
I plop down on the bed and sit cross-legged, grabbing a pillow to hold in my lap. Jace comes and sits across from me, kicking off his shoes. His wings settle behind him, tucked close but relaxed.
“Before anything else,” he says, reaching forward to tuck my hair behind my ear so he can see my face, “tell me what happened in the mirror.”
I pull the pillow tighter against my chest. I knew this was coming.
“It was dark,” I start, staring at the threads in the pillowcase. “Nothing existed except me and this…presence, this voice.”
“What did it say?”
“It asked me things about what I fear. About who I am. It said it recognized my blood and that my father had been to Ashwell.” I look up at him. “I didn’t know that. He never told me. It seems impossible, right?”
Jace’s brow furrows. “Your father went here? But he was human. I would have been able to tell if he wasn’t, unless he found some way to hide it. It does seem impossible.”
“I thought so.” I pick at the edge of the pillow. “But after the ceremony, Professor Nestor pulled me aside and said something that’s been stuck in my head ever since.”
“What?”
“He said in light of that my father must’ve been anything but human.”
Jace thinks it over and shakes his head. “Mae, that’s... Do you have any idea what that means? What could he have been?”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” I stammer. “I thought I knew who I was. I thought I knew who he was, and now everything feels like a lie.”
Jace drifts close enough that his knee brushes mine.
“Hey, whatever your father was or wasn’t, it doesn’t change who you are. You’re still Maelis. You’re still the girl who used to beat me at races through the village and patch me up when I scraped my knees trying to keep up.”
I snicker, “Yeah, until your legs grew, and now I can’t keep up. I always let you win a few too.”
“Liar.” He grins. “You’re the most competitive person I know.”
The tension in my chest loosens a little. He knows exactly when to make me laugh.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Anything.”
“What was it like for you when you touched the mirror?”
He scratches his head, thinking. “I put my hand in, and it was like…warmth, and then Flick was there. I felt him before I saw him, this presence that was suddenly part of me. It didn’t ask me questions or show me anything.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Poppy finishes her crackers and curls into a ball in her pillow nest, eyes closing.
“Mae.” Jace grows serious. “I’ve wanted to say something for a while now.” He reaches out and takes the pillow from my hands, setting it aside. “I keep waiting for the right moment, but there never is one, so I’m just going to say it.”
My heart starts beating faster. “Jace—”
“I know you’ve been holding back. I know you’re scared of ruining what we have.
” He takes my hands in his. “But I need you to know that you could never lose me no matter what happens. I’ve been yours since we were kids , Mae.
That’s not going to change. I’m not asking you to love me back. I just need you to know you are loved.”
I stare at our hands. His are so much bigger than mine, warm and steady and familiar. Loved.
“I’m scared,” I admit, not looking up to meet his gaze, “of letting myself have this and then losing it.”
“I know.” He squeezes my hands. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight. I’ll wait. I’ve been waiting.”
I look up at him. He’s close enough that I can see the silver flecks in his blue eyes. I can feel his breath.
“Jace.”
“Yeah?”
“Stop talking.”
I close the distance between us.
The kiss is soft at first, like we’re both afraid to break something fragile. His hand comes up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek, and I feel something open inside my chest, something I’ve been holding shut for years.
This is my Jace. The boy who used to sneak me honey cakes from his mother’s kitchen. The boy who held my hand at my father’s burial and didn’t let go until I was ready. The boy who has always been there, patient and steady, waiting for me to see what was right in front of me.
I kiss him back, and it feels like the most natural thing I’ve ever done.
Then it deepens enough that I feel it everywhere. His tongue presses in, and I part my lips, tasting him as he pulls me into his lap. One hand wraps around my lower back, and I close my legs around him. My arms go around his neck, and his tongue explores my mouth.
When we finally pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine. We’re both breathing harder than we should be.
“That was...” he starts.
“Yeah,” I laugh softly, “it was.”
He pulls back enough to look at me. There’s wonder in his expression, like he can’t believe this is real.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he says.
“How long?”
“Since we were fourteen and you fell in the river trying to catch a fish with your bare hands and came up laughing with mud in your hair.”
I groan. “That’s such an embarrassing memory.”
“It’s my favorite memory.”
I shove his shoulder, but I’m smiling. He catches my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
“Stay with me tonight?” I ask.
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
We shift until we’re lying down, his arm around me, my head on his chest. Poppy snores softly from her pillow pile. The storm howls outside, but here it’s warm and quiet and safe.
Jace holds me for a while, the covers pulled up tight around us. I start to fall asleep until he says, “Mae, when you were in the mirror... something happened.”
My eyes open wide. “What do you mean?”
I tip my head back to look at him.
“The mirror started to glow, and the bones in the frame were vibrating. They were pulsing. It didn’t change like that for anyone else. And Headmaster Ashmoor stepped forward like he was going to pull you out or something. But then he stopped himself.” Jace’s eyes meet mine. “And he smiled.”
A chill creeps over me. “He smiled?”
“It was like whatever was happening to you was exactly what he wanted.” His hand finds mine under the covers where it rests on his chest. “I thought maybe he wanted it to hurt you, to take the human out of his school. But then you were out and okay.”
I nestle my head back into his shoulder. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what the headmaster wanted after the way he acted with me in his office. Unremarkable Maelis. What is that guy’s deal?
Jace lets out a sigh, and I ask, “How does Draven have an eidolon already? He’s a bone year like us.”
He tenses slightly. “I don’t know. I’ve wondered the same thing.”
“His wolf is different too, larger and black.”
“I noticed.” His arm tightens around me. “There are rumors about the Alucard family. Stay away from Draven. Something about him isn’t right, and after the way he attacked you in class today—”
“What rumors?” I press curiosity getting the better of me. “What do people say about the Alucard family?”
“Not all vampires are born, you know.”
I blink. “No, I didn’t know that. I thought all the bloodlines were born what they are.”
“Not vampires.” His fingers trace slow circles on my back. “In fact, most of them are turned, usually at a young age by their family.”
I sit up a bit to look at him. “So if two vampires have a baby, it’s not a vampire?”
“No, having a vampire baby is rare. It happens, but most are turned. That’s how the bloodline keeps thriving.”
“And what’s the rumor about the Alucards?”
I rest my head back down, and Jace starts to run his fingers across my lower back now where my skin peeks through below my shirt.
“They’re an old bloodline. His ancestors may even be the original bloodline. Draven was born a vampire, and born vampires are far more powerful than turned ones.”
I think about him in the alleyway earlier. The things he said to me about how I don’t belong here. The red bleeding into his amber eyes. His giant black wings when he first dropped down in front of me.
“The point is, he’s powerful and comes from an old powerful bloodline with many connections.” Jace’s hand stills on my back. “You don’t want to get on his bad side. You don’t want him to take an interest in you. Stay away from him, okay?”
I should tell him the truth that staying away from Draven feels impossible. That he keeps finding me in the dark corners of this school. That some twisted curious part of me doesn’t want to stay away at all.
“I will,” I say.
Jace presses a kiss to the top of my head and pulls me closer. His breathing evens out within minutes as he fades into sleep.
But I don’t fall asleep for a long time.
I lie there in the dark, thinking about amber eyes bleeding red and a voice in the mirror that knew my blood, a headmaster who smiled while I was trapped inside.
And there’s a boy made of shadows and secrets who told me I would never survive this place.
Maybe he’s right, but I’m going to prove him wrong anyway.