Chapter 7 Snow And Ravens
Snow And Ravens
“Ihave something I need to do,” Caelum said. “It shouldn’t take long.”
He kept his voice neutral, his expression relaxed.
He needed to go alone for this.
He doubted he would be able to have the same kind of conversation with the old man if she was in the room, and it wasn’t like he wouldn’t tell her what he found out. For simplicity’s sake, he needed to go alone.
She’d just told him she needed to go back to Valarian anyway, and feed her cat, so why the fuck was he freaking out over the prospect of leaving her alone for five minutes?
“What about I come find you after?” he asked.
She looked at him, a faint tension in her eyes, and he could feel the reluctance on her, too.
Maybe that should’ve eased his anxiety, reassured him that it wasn’t all on his side, but somehow it didn’t.
When he felt her panic, he wanted to grab her in his arms and crush her to his chest. Really, he wanted to strip them both naked and lock everyone else out of his room.
Everything about those urges felt compulsive to the point of lunacy, and maddeningly difficult to control.
He honestly didn’t know if it was a relief or made things worse that he could now, without question, feel it on her, as well.
That ache had been bloody torture at the hospital in Cambridge.
It fogged his mind, gave him headaches, made his skin hurt. It manifested most obviously as a sharp pain in his chest, but that confusion remained, mixed with an agitation that made it even harder to control his magic.
Being in the same room as her, he actually felt better. Calmer. More in control. But the ache remained, and it seemed to be growing worse as time went on.
He wanted to tell her about it, ask if she felt it that way, too. But he didn’t want to go into that with her yet, not even in their minds, not with Alaric watching the two of them, that deeply punchable look on his face.
Anyway, Caelum knew that wouldn’t be a short conversation.
Moreover, he didn’t want to rush it. He wanted them to take the time to really talk about it. It also needed to be private, even beyond the fact that he doubted very much whether he’d be able to control himself for long once they really got into it.
But yes, he wanted to know what was happening on her end.
He didn’t want to guess based on the fragments he picked up from her mind.
He wanted her to tell him. In detail.
He also wanted to know what those books she’d referenced were about, and if she’d really had any luck figuring out what was wrong with him. He needed to find out everything he possibly could with his father out of the way.
He shook off the thought, considered kissing her again, then decided that would be a bad idea, too. Let her go deal with her cat. He could wait to be alone with her.
Anyway, he had his own information-gathering to do.
He walked with her and Alaric as they made their way down to the base of his tower and into the broader, taller corridors of Malcroix Mansion.
He walked alongside them again as they crossed through the central building, heading for the southern walkway that led to the east wing.
They’d passed no other students. They’d passed no staff or faculty.
The few people who’d remained on campus for the holiday were likely either hunkered down in their colleges because of the snow, or, conversely, they’d gone to visit Bonescastle.
The invisible city would be covered in decorations for the holidays, with storefronts and restaurants bustling and open, crowds of shoppers and holiday revelers filling the pubs and narrow streets.
The thought made his jaw clench.
That’s where Leda should be. If she couldn’t go to London, or to the home of one of her friends, she should at least be in Bonescastle, enjoying the holiday that way. She shouldn’t be trapped behind these walls, unable to leave, like him.
He’d pulled her into his smaller world, and now he had no idea how to get her out.
He didn’t voice any of that aloud, of course.
He remained silent while she and Alaric chatted, following them down and around corridors right up to the easternmost door.
He stepped forward, unlatched it, and forced it open through several feet of snow that had accumulated on the top step.
He glanced back at Leda and saw her looking through the glass wistfully, right before she returned his gaze.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she asked tentatively.
His eyes left hers with an effort, and he looked out over the same view.
A blanket of snow covered the hill and trail that sloped east and south from the staircase.
Thicker drifts piled higher around statues and trees on the eastern side of the gardens, and he could see the Fountain of the Furies to his right, likely frozen solid near the main entrance to the central hall.
Only a handful of footprints marred the perfect cover of snow, and none but one looked human.
“It’s beautiful,” he agreed. His eyes fell to her feet. She was wearing boots, at least. “Are you going to be all right? Getting back through that?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, Alaric wrapped an arm around her neck and grinned at him.
“Of course we’ll be all right,” he said, squeezing her to him. “If I get stuck, your witch will simply sprout golden wings and carry me back to Valarian like a sexy angel.”
Caelum bit his tongue, but stared his friend in the face.
“You’re pushing your luck,” he said. “Given where I found you this morning, you should be treading a lot more carefully, Alec.”
The prick only laughed.
Then he turned with Leda, who looked back over her shoulder at him briefly and smiled. He thought he saw a flicker of regret in those stunning green eyes, right before they left through the iron and glass door and began descending the steep stairs.
Caelum continued to stand there, watching as they reached the bottom. He followed their progress as they walked out onto the snowy field.
That heat in his chest burned hotter as he watched her go.
Then he turned and resumed walking towards a different tower.
“Greythorne’s got his own now,” Caelum said, blunt. “Skull. Anubis. Pyramid. Mean anything to you?” At the professor’s silence, his words turned caustic. “Were you there? For the ritual itself? I’m told my father officiated.”
The tall, black-haired mage looked up slightly from where he had a cauldron bubbling over a dark green magical flame. That same flame occasionally flickered red and orange when the mage poked it with a metal rod.
Normally, Caelum might have been more fascinated by the sparks and twinges his primal reacted to in that fire, but right then, he needed answers. Something told him he didn’t have an indefinite amount of time to get them, either.
The mage only spared him a single, probing look before his blue-white eyes, which glowed even in the darkened area of his work table, shifted back to the bubbling, black and silver goo inside the cauldron.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Bones?” Blackstone asked blandly.
Caelum gritted his teeth. “I’m fine,” he said, dismissive. “Healed. Mostly.”
“Your magical aura looks both depleted and erratic. Have you been taking your medication? Since the incident, I mean?”
“No,” Caelum growled. “How the fuck was I supposed to do that, exactly?
Blackstone didn’t answer, and that time, his eerily blind gaze remained on the concoction he was in the middle of brewing.
Caelum wouldn’t normally be so blunt, or, really, so aggressive, with one of the most senior professors at Malcroix, but, like the professor himself just pointed out, he wasn’t feeling particularly calm at the moment.
“I have some here,” Blackstone pointed out.
For the first time, his voice edged into a warning.
Caelum felt his own jaw clench harder. “Are we going to talk about this? Or is this your way of telling me to piss off?”
Blackstone didn’t react to Bones’s words, or his tone. His hand stirring the black and silver tar-like substance didn’t move faster or slower, and he didn’t look up from where he peered into the cauldron with his blue-white eyes.
Caelum clenched his jaw, wrapping his hand around the cane he hated but found it easier to use since he’d gotten out of hospital.
He fought to control his anger. His eyes shifted to the iron perch by the largest window in the professor’s office right as a large black shape flapped its way through the window’s unlatched door.
The raven landed heavily on the metal bar, squawking and clicking its talons up and down the perch.
Only then did Blackstone glance up, and it wasn’t to look at Caelum.
“Thank you, Morag,” he said to the bird.
Blackstone switched off the burner with a twist of his wrist, sprinkled something over the concoction (iron shavings? gold? some spice that caught the sunlight strangely?), then performed an elaborate set of hand-movements over the mixture that let out another puff of magic.
Blackstone’s primal, which also happened to be a raven, only one with blue-white eyes like his, stood on the rim of the iron cauldron. It muttered and chuffed as it peered down at the substance, its talons gripping the metal rim.
Caelum didn’t recognize any of the magic Blackstone performed. He didn’t recognize the substance in the cauldron, either. Whatever it was, he’d never seen it before.
He wanted to snap at the other male, to demand an answer, but he maneuvered himself over to a low bookshelf near a different window instead, and leaned his weight against the sill. He set the cane against the side of the bookshelf and exhaled a breath.
Stretching out his hurt leg, he held his knee, wincing as he glanced out the window at the snow-covered fields.
From this part of the Southeast Tower, he had a clear view of Vulcan Lake, as well as the gardens, the fountain, and the Great Lawn.
The Experimental Magic Sheds lived directly to his left, and straight ahead, looking west, Bonescastle Forest and the wall.