Chapter 13
CHAPTER
Are you okay?
The dark, fathomless presence filled my mind the moment I stumbled out of the Shifter house—still no sign of Emelle or Lander—and out onto Bascite Boulevard.
All the houses had calmed down now, but I couldn’t tell what time it was.
Not when a heavy film of clouds slathered the sky and sent warm rain streaking down all around me.
Oh, so you were watching all that like a creeper, then, I spat into my own mind, each of my footsteps splashing angrily through puddles of water as I staggered home. I was beginning to wonder if I’d imagined you standing in the corner.
Not that I knew how Steeler had done it. Because how the hell did Mind Manipulating make someone invisible? Unless he’d commanded both the Shifter and me to simply… unsee him.
At that thought, I made a full circle in the middle of the road, squinting through the rain for any signs of someone stalking me.
Nothing. Nobody was out at the moment.
Nobody I could see, at least.
Steeler’s voice dropped a shade lower. As much as I’d love to, Rayna, I can’t spy on you 24/7 or I’d lose my mind in yours. And I’d never willingly stand there and watch you touch another man.
I bristled at the pure possessiveness in that voice, the dominance on the brink of a frenzy. But he went on before I could come up with a response scathing enough to bite.
When I sensed that man trying to touch you against your will, though… let’s just say I got there as fast as I could. But it looked like you had the situation handled all on your own, didn’t you?
And now there was pride—actual pride—in his voice. As if the thought of me slicing off someone’s fingertips thrilled him.
Hypocritical, coming from you, I scoffed, resuming my lumbering path toward the Wild Whisperer house…
but still keeping half an eye out for any human-shaped movement in the dark.
If Steeler had truly been in that room just five minutes ago, I had no doubt he was watching me now, following me this very instant.
I cleared my throat. As if you didn’t do the same thing to me last year.
Steeler’s presence in my head seemed to hold its breath, then let it out in one long, slow exhale. It was worse than if he’d been breathing in my ear. He was breathing inside me. Within me.
I made a careless mistake in letting Kitterfol Lexington keep that particular memory, he said finally. Not a day goes by where I don’t curse myself for forgetting he had it.
I’d made it to the double doors of my own house, but now I stopped on the front steps, letting the rain soak my tangle of curls.
That’s what you curse yourself for? My whole body trembled with rage at the audacity, something in my chest shifting like a mamba trying to strike through the bars of its prison.
You’re not ashamed of the things you did to me in that memory, but for failing to erase the evidence of it?
I wrenched open the doors and barged into the foyer, laughing humorlessly again.
Maybe if you weren’t so obsessed with me, you would’ve remembered to mess up other people’s minds, too.
Oh, trust me, Steeler said without hesitation. Without shame. Obsessing over you has put a wrench in all of my plans. You are the most distracting, most devastating addiction I’ve ever known.
Chills grazed down the back of my neck as I lurched up the stairs.
To the second-year floor. Down the dark, quiet hall.
Predators can’t stay away from their prey, Dyonisia had said.
If I’d truly put a wrench in Steeler’s plans, then…
then he was admitting the same thing now.
He actually wanted to stay away, to leave me alone—but couldn’t.
Each step seemed to pull the air from my lungs, and the walls wavered. Maybe my intoxication had never cleared after all.
It wasn’t until I’d made it to my own door that I was able to dredge up any kind of coherent response.
If you’re so addicted to me, then why don’t you come out from wherever you’re hiding and face me again? I’d love to reenact what I just did to that Shifter with you.
Not the horrible, clammy kissing, obviously. But the slicing.
A dark chuckle rumbled through my mind.
As tempting as that is, little hurricane, it’s not Sunday night yet. But until then—a gentle caress against the walls of my mind—sweetest dreams.
And then he was gone.
“Where’d you go?” I called into the darkness of my room. “Come back here right now. I’m not finished with this conversation.”
But the voice that answered wasn’t Steeler’s.
“Rayna? Who are you talking—oh.”
A lantern flickered to life across the room.
Neither Emelle nor Cilia had made it back yet, but Dazmine’s face flared into stark relief as she pressed her fiercest glower onto me, her fingertips drumming against her crossed arms. Even through my haze, I could see the pinpricks all over her arms—as if she’d been spending her free time practicing with the sundew.
“You’re drunk, aren’t you? I can smell you from here.”
“Not drunk,” I muttered. By the orchid and the owl, I sounded stupid even to my own ears. “Just a little tipsy.”
Dazmine raised her eyebrows.
“You going to cut my throat with that, or are you going to put it away?” She nodded at my raised hand, and I startled at the sight of my knife still in my fist, the blade glimmering with blood.
I fumbled with my dress for a moment before sliding it back into the sheath around my thigh. I’d clean it tomorrow.
“Sorry about that.” My body seemed to lurch for my bed of its own accord. I fell on top of my covers and pressed my face into my pillow, moaning sideways, “My life is so messed up, Daz.”
Dazmine looked at me like I was a pile of Willa’s droppings.
“One, I literally don’t care, and two, never call me Daz again.” It looked like she was about to turn off her lantern and climb back into bed, but she paused long enough to wrinkle her nose at me again. “For God’s sake, you could at least wash your face before you fall asleep.”
My eyes fluttered shut. “Probably,” I muttered.
For a microsecond, the start of a dream tried to tug me away… but then a cold, dripping washcloth was slapping me back awake, with Dazmine’s look of pure contempt staring down at me.
“There. It looks like you have… is that blood splattered all over your cheeks?” After a few shocked blinks, she shook her head and turned back toward her own bed. “I don’t even want to know—unless you’ve murdered a classmate again or something.”
The tone was sarcastic, but such sorrow edged her voice that as soon as I was done scrubbing my face, I whispered, “It’s not me who killed Fergus. And it wasn’t Jenia either.”
Dazmine twisted back around, her braids flying.
“But you know who did? He’s really…” Her voice wobbled, just for a second. “Fergus is really dead?”
“Yes.” If Coen’s killing that kid was all me claim was true. My eyes were closing again against my will as I sank my head back into my pillow and let the washcloth drop to the floor.
“Well then you need to tell the Good Council!” Dazmine’s voice seemed to echo from far, far away. “Maybe they’ll bring Jenia back if there’s proof that she didn’t hurt him—”
“No,” I breathed. “They won’t bring her back. The pirates aren’t the good guys, Dazmine, but neither is anyone on the Good Council. No one is good.” Another dream tugged at me. “No one’s good.”
My last thought before drifting away was that I wanted to be good. But after what I’d done to that Shifter’s fingers, after how quickly I’d resorted to violence without considering any other options…
I didn’t know if it was possible for me to ever be good again.
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
A little wet nose sniffled against my chin, and I peeled my eyes open to find Willa in my face, sunlight fissuring in through gaps in the vine-smothered window behind her.
“There’s a bird pecking on your window,” she said, “and I don’t have the hissing skills to scare it away. Or the hands to strangle it.”
No sooner had she said it than a sharp tap, tap, tap sounded against the glass, and I blinked at the bright blue cotinga visible through a small gap in the foliage curtain.
On either side of the room, Emelle and Dazmine’s beds were empty—Dazmine’s crisply made as if she’d never slept in it at all—but Cilia was drooling into her arm across from me, reeking of the same kind of hangover weighing me down right now.
She must have stumbled in last night after I’d passed out.
Moaning, I rolled out of bed and just barely managed to catch myself before crashing to the floor. I dragged my footsteps to the window, opened it a crack, and rubbed my eyes against the whoosh of a warm morning breeze.
“Hello?”
“Hi! Hi! Hi!” The cotinga hopped inside. “Are you Emelle’s friend?”
“Yes.” My heartbeat spiked. “Is she okay? What happened?”
Emelle spent the night with Lander a few times a week, so I hadn’t even thought to worry about her whereabouts, but…
“Oh yes, she’s fine, fine, fine!” cheeped the cotinga. “She’s at the Shape Shifter house. She just asked me to make sure you’d made it safely to your room.” It twitched, fluffing up its feathers. “So did you make it safely to your room? Did you? Did you?”
“Um.” I glanced around at my room. “Yes, I believe I did.”
“Great! I’ll tell her! Bye, bye, bye!”
The cotinga fluttered to Emelle’s bedside table, pecked at the birdfeeder half-filled with various kinds of seeds and nuts, and flapped off again with a happy chirp.
I shut the window, just as Willa scurried up to the ledge where the bird had perched and rolled her beady black eyes.
“I think I need some coffee after hearing that thing talk. Shall we go to the dining hall for some breakfast?” She paused to study me long enough for Cilia to break the silence with a snore. “I’m sure you’re starving after mincing up some good old-fashioned fingertips.”
“Shit.” I groaned into my hands. “Does everyone know?”