Chapter 36 Maddening
Maddening
Ifelt strangely guilty, and faintly ill after I’d snuck out of Bones’s room, even though I left before dawn, and had damned good reasons for not waking him.
The guilt side of things was easier to understand.
I knew how I’d feel if he’d done it to me.
His drugged-out blather while we’d both been half-awake, coming down off copious amounts of adrenaline and magic, and exhausted to the point of passing out didn’t help.
I worried that if he remembered any of what he’d said, he’d read something into my absence.
I also worried that if he remembered it and I stuck around, things would have been even more awkward between us.
In the end, I decided to leave, but neither option felt great.
I knew not to take anything he’d said all that seriously.
He’d barely been conscious.
He’d also been drugged, injured, magically drained, and possibly concussed, if he’d been looked at by human doctors using human terminology.
I knew both of us were overtired, and probably in some degree of shock.
But I still struggled to stop thinking about it when I first opened my eyes. I didn’t want to be thinking about it.
Had he really called me his wife?
I knew it was probably his idea of a joke, or a figure of speech, at least. Like how people on Earth called their significant other their “ball and chain.”
I definitely didn’t want to think about it or be confused by any of it, especially now.
But I was confused, and now I felt guilty because I suspected that confusion was a large part of the reason I’d snuck out of there without leaving him so much as a note. Well, unless you count the note I left on his pain potion bottle, which simply said: “Drink Me.”
Now, to top things off, I felt off-balance again, bordering on ill.
It didn’t feel like a hangover, or even lingering shock.
The illness was a growing ache, one that felt increasingly familiar.
I’d been noticing for weeks how often I struggled when Bones wasn’t around.
I struggled being outside of his magic. Before I had any way to understand it, or even to know if it was real, the realization made me anxious enough that I usually just told myself I was imagining it.
But after our conversation at the restaurant, I knew I wasn’t imagining it.
It absolutely was real.
When I’d first opened my eyes, and stared up at Bones’s ceiling, patterned in moonlight and those magical stars that glimmered through the transparent canopy above his bed, I’d felt normal for the first time in days.
Despite everything, despite my worry about him, about us, about everything that happened the night before, I’d relaxed into his magic so completely my throat closed.
I’d lied there, struggling with emotion, and feeling like a fool.
It was getting harder to deny how all of this was affecting me.
That “connection” Bones told me about might have some impersonal, quasi-mechanical component to it, something to do with what he was, but it definitely didn’t feel impersonal, not to me, and possibly not to Bones, either.
I could try to rationalize it all I wanted. It didn’t change anything.
Anyway, whatever my feelings about Bones, I could no longer ignore the symptoms of what was happening to me.
I couldn’t control what my magic wanted from him, which had begun to feel increasingly compulsive, maybe even “addictive,” as Bones called it the night before.
I couldn’t control the strange connection between us.
I also couldn’t deny that a large part of me had no interest in controlling it.
And what the hell was I supposed to do with that?
I decided I couldn’t do anything about it, not now, at least.
I needed to talk to Bones, really talk to him, without my usual side-stepping and pretending everything was fine.
I had no idea how he would react if I told him in detail how I was experiencing all of this, or the kinds of thoughts and feelings it brought up in me.
I didn’t know if that would panic him, cause him to cut me off, bring up more of that aggravating guilt of his, or if he’d want to drag me to Blackstone and Forsooth so they could “fix” me in some way.
There was no point in guessing how he’d react.
I just had to bite the bullet and tell him.
I lost track of time while puttering around our dorms at Valarian.
After I got back, I lit all the fireplaces and raised the flames and opened all the doors to warm the rooms, both for myself and Wraith, and for Miranda and Jolie’s return.
Only then did I feed Wraith, and take a shower.
It wasn’t until I’d changed my clothes, and saw all of my luggage from the Tower still sitting in the common area, that it struck me that I needed to sort all of that out, too, preferably before eleven o’clock, or Mir and Jolie would probably have some awkward questions.
I’d seen Luc briefly, and Alaric, but that had been hours ago, and since then, I’d spent most of the morning going through the books I’d brought back from the Tower, stacking them on the bookshelves in my bedroom, which had thankfully multiplied to accommodate all of them, and hanging up clothes Varya had given me.
Luc told me he planned to go to see Bones, so I’d passed a message along, thinking it was probably better if we didn’t out ourselves to the entire school before I’d had a chance to talk to him again.
Luc hadn’t seemed thrilled about relaying that message, but grudgingly, he’d agreed to say something if he found Bones before the brunch began.
As I was washing out my third cup of coffee in the sink of our dormitory apartment, it struck me suddenly that the hour felt late.
I’d expected Miranda and Jolie, and likely Draken too, to come up to the dorms before the brunch, dump off their luggage from the holiday and grab me before they headed down to the New Year Brunch Alaric told me about.
When I glanced at the clock and saw it was already well past eleven-thirty, it finally sank in that they wouldn’t be doing that.
I was about to miss brunch altogether.
So yes, I was late in getting down to the south gardens.
I was really, really late.
I was also feeling pretty frazzled by then.
The fact that I’d gotten down there so late, without having seen any of my friends prior to showing up, definitely didn’t help my state of mind, or make me feel remotely prepared to deal with whatever might be waiting for me when I got there.
I’d nearly forgotten I’d been spat on multiple times in the week before the break, not to mention threatened, had curses thrown at me, and gotten screamed at by red-faced royals.
Also, because I flew out the dormitory door without so much as glancing at myself in the mirror, I felt self-conscious about how I must look, with basically no sleep the night before, letting my hair air-dry in front of the fireplace for several hours without passing a comb through it, no make-up, running on too much caffeine and anxiety, and now a touch of adrenaline, with the added bonus of being light-headed from hunger.
I came to a full stop before I’d even found anyone I’d come down there to meet. The instant I crossed an invisible line, just a few yards down from the Promenade path into the main gardens, I found myself inside an entirely different world.
From the outside, I had seen picnic benches and tables scattered around on the park area just south of the Mansion.
I’d seen people inside there, crowds of them, really, sitting on tables and benches, seemingly talking and eating, but for some reason, I couldn’t discern or recognize individual faces, nor really get a sense of what they were wearing or eating.
Everything appeared as a blurry silhouette before I crossed that line.
Then I crossed it, and everything snapped into focus.
The temperature shocked me first.
Unlike the cold, cloud-heavy sky outside the dome, inside, a golden sun beat down, filling the air with warmth and the pungent smell of flowers and grass.
The gardens and picnic area had been altered under an illusion chimaera, like what Forsooth had done for the Second Year’s party.
This illusion was far less elaborate, but almost more shocking, not only for its realism but its utter seamlessness with the view from outside.
Whoever had done it turned a dark winter day into late spring, lining up every aspect of the university campus from outside to in, but changing every detail for the seasons.
Through that lens, Malcroix Mansion dripped with vines and blooming flowers.
A hot sun shone on the Great Lawn, which was dotted with tiny blue and white blossoms. Vulcan Lake shimmered under the sunlight in the distance, like it was coated in diamonds.
The trees of Bonescastle Forest swayed in a warm breeze, their branches and trunks going from wet and black to covered in sharp green leaves and blooming flowers.
The people inside the bubble all appeared to be wearing season-appropriate clothing, too, as the warm sun dappled their faces and reflected in their eyes.
I looked down at myself, and saw that the chimaera had changed my heavy trousers, jumper, scarf, gloves, and coat into a pale green, spring dress with spaghetti straps, one that likely matched my eyes, at least from what I could tell of the color.
The chimaera also turned my boots into sandals.
I still wore the green crystal around my neck on its chain, and the gold, cat-faced ring Bones had given me, and the gold bracelet, but I didn’t recognize anything else.
When I looked up, I froze a second time.
Bones sat on a bench directly in front of me.
I think I felt him before I saw him, and even when I looked up, I didn’t manage to keep my eyes on him for very long.
I saw the shock of platinum blond and gold eyes and immediately looked away, my gaze shifting compulsively to Alaric, who sat on the same bench to his right, then Elysia Warrington, who sat between them, but on top of the table, her legs crossed elegantly and her pink faerie primal buzzing around the three of them.
The chimaera had given Elysia a pink dress with matching high heels.
Her hair hung down in a perfect blonde curtain, blending well with the pink.
Her make-up looked pristine, and she held a copy of the London Twilight in one hand.
I glanced down at the front page to see an image of Academy Square in Bonescastle, fireworks going off in the distance in a night sky, with magical charges lighting up the lens in the foreground.
Alaric had a chocolate muffin sitting next to him on the bench, and a cup of tea or coffee in his hand. He wore a dark purple suit with a white shirt and gold waistcoat. He smirked at me faintly and quirked an eyebrow, probably at whatever expression had come to my face.
Elysia, as usual, pretended I didn’t exist at all.
It took me a few seconds longer to look back at Bones.
It hit me I was nervous.
My heart pounded in my chest, my throat felt stuck, my hands wanted to wring together.
It all struck me as ludicrous given how much time we’d spent together of late.
I was nervous to see him, nervous to talk to him, nervous about him, period.
I felt like a blushing teenager, and I couldn’t for the life of me comprehend why.
Bones stared back at me, his own face unmoving.
He’d gone back to his impenetrable mode, where I might be a bug he was contemplating burning with sunlight and a magnifying glass.
Even so, I could see through part of that mask.
Dark circles were visible under his eyes, even in the strong, spring sunshine.
He looked exhausted, and his eyes flickered with that gold and green flame that told me he wasn’t in a particularly stable frame of mind, either.
Once I’d looked at him, I found it difficult to tear my eyes away.
I saw him measuring me, too, looking down at the dress I wore, his stare lingering briefly on my feet in the sandals. His bone dragon primal stared at me, too.
Elysia’s voice rose in a bored-sounding drawl.
“Gods, Cal. Do you have to look at that disgusting half-breed like that? Are you trying to make me lose my lunch?” She kicked him lightly with a pink high-heel clad foot.
“You can go to town now, can’t you?” she asked loudly.
“Why don’t you take me out to dinner tonight?
I’ll give you a reason to forget about gawking at animals. ”
Bones’s face didn’t so much as flinch.
I fought with a reaction boiling in my chest I couldn’t entirely control.
Again, I knew he’d dated Elysia. I knew that.
I also knew they’d known one another since they were children, and while he hadn’t told me outright, I could sense a real history and friendship lurking behind her snotty statements and perpetual jealousy around anyone she saw with Bones.
Even so, something about seeing them all together, like Elysia belonged next to him while I assuredly did not, drove home a powerless feeling that wanted to tip into anger.
I was tired of trying to convince myself it didn’t matter to me.
Bones had told me he was tired of it, too.
Yet we still hadn’t really talked about the crux of things between us, not sober anyway, which was starting to fray as an excuse as well.
Why hadn’t we talked about it? All that time in the Tower and we had numerous reasons to talk about it, particularly given how his mother seemed to see the two of us, but we never really had.
I’d never even seen him correct his mother’s assumptions, not really, not in front of me, at any rate.
He’d avoided me when we first got back to school, and then last night had been our “date” and we’d talked about that magical, caelum ignis “connection,” which maybe clarified some of it, but we still hadn’t exactly resolved things on the emotional end.
I definitely had no idea how Bones felt about any of it. He’d compared it to an addiction and he implied he didn’t really want to stop things between us, but apart from guilt and frustration with me, he hadn’t clarified his actual feelings.
And yes, I had thought, in the beginning at least, that he was mostly with me because we could have sex in a way he couldn’t with other Magicals.
He kept saying he didn’t believe that, but he’d never clarified that assertion, either.
He certainly hadn’t told me his other reasons, if they weren’t all about sex.
He’d called me his wife. He’d called me “wifey.”
How in the depths of the underworld was I supposed to take that?
His mouth twitched.
His eyes didn’t move.
Gods, he was maddening.
He was absolutely, positively infuriating.