Chapter Twenty #3
Leland whispered something in Vyra’s ear, and I spooled the ends of twine securing the rose stems tightly around my pointer finger, cutting off my circulation to take my mind off his mouth nuzzling Vyra’s ear.
Belinda rocked back and forth on her toes. “We’re all having dinner together, right?” To me, she added, “We eat at the fourth-year table, and you should absolutely join.”
Vyra gave her a not-so-subtle look.
“I mean” — Belinda swallowed, fixing on a smile — “until the other students get here. Then you can join the first years.”
Vyra angled her head at me. “Is she technically a first year? She won’t have spellcasting magic, so it’s not like she’ll be doing anything besides staring at her crush.”
“She is,” Rayne said calmly. “And she didn’t choose this.”
My eyes wandered up the spiral. “Actually,” I started.
A mosquito buzzed by my face, and Leland leapt up, one arm tight around Vyra’s midriff to hold her steady as she gracefully recovered from being thrust from his lap. I swerved to dodge the mosquito as it doubled back. And back. And back. Was it sniffing me?
“Call her off,” Leland said sternly.
Vyra scoffed.
“Vyra, I said call Sutter off.”
The mosquito flitted back to her. A Familiar. Yet another Aspirant in Leland’s circle, I thought.
“You must smell . . .” Vyra paused. “Sweet.”
“She smells like almond pastries!” Skye contributed.
And for the first time since I set foot in the arcade, Leland looked at me. Stared, actually. I wondered if he’d heard my erratic heartbeat. If they all did. I had cooled to him since wearing the cuffs, but the look he was giving was . . .
Fire.
I quickly glanced away.
“So.” Belinda clapped. “Ready for dinner?”
“Ember’s tired,” Leland said.
Everyone looked between us.
I was hungry, but if he was going to bite Vyra’s ear all night, fine. I’d rather starve and put my clothes away. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said. “Some quiet and a change of scenery would be good.” I blatantly looked at Leland’s fingers splayed on Vyra’s mini skirt.
“Your room’s the last one at the top of the spiral,” he said. “You and Skye will share. Do you need one of us to show you?”
“I’ll take her!” Belinda said, notching her arm to me before I had a chance to say no.
Skye hung back with the fourth years, watching me climb the long way up the spiral, smirking because she’d figured me out.
She knew I got tired, that at the end of the day I wanted to be alone, zoning out, happy to live in my memories, especially when I couldn’t fall asleep.
Not that she always respected it, but she knew.
I didn’t mind Belinda, but my brain struggled to keep up with her fountain of information.
She pointed out the cafeteria, laundry, library, the passage to the classrooms, the passage to the hatch, Starvos’s office, and where the fourth-year teachers slept in the first five rooms closest to the arcade, the one next to Leland’s — Aila’s old room — now vacant.
She explained the washroom situation. One on each level, all unisex, technically open to everyone, but —
“Stay out of the fourth-year one?” I guessed correctly as we came upon the very last door, four levels up from where Leland’s room was.
“Hear me out,” said Belinda. “Worst location. Seriously, you’ll be getting up half an hour before the rest of us if you want breakfast. But.” She squealed. “Best, best room.” There was a hip bump. “You have to turn the knob yourself. Wards and all won’t let me in without you.”
I opened the door, walked into my new bedroom, and said goodnight to Belinda from across the threshold.
* * *
Our room was what I imagined a shared suite would look like at an expensive boarding school, full of velvet fabrics and rich tones. On the back wall, an enormous fireplace vibrantly crackled. And plush under my feet was a giant, scarlet area rug.
We had a quiet location. The very top of the spiral was a place absolutely no one had a reason to go, unless they specifically wanted to visit.
I’d turned over my hefting satchel, dumped everything on one of the canopied beds, and a few hours later, all my clothes were hanging and color-coded.
Skye would sneak into my closet and do it if I didn’t.
I still hadn’t touched the massive pile of bras and underwear covering my bed like a second comforter. They needed to be sorted, donated if possible. Only ten percent of it was remotely close to something I would wear, and I was comfortable wearing a lot. Or little. But . . . not those.
Leland knocked at the door.
I opened it to him standing there alone, holding a large plate. I stayed behind the door, in the short hallway with a shoe rack and a floor-to-ceiling mirror before the room opened into a wide square.
My stomach growled as I surveyed the plate in his hand and inhaled aromas of sliced honey-baked ham, sausage links, gravy-drizzled turkey, meat balls, meat squares, and half a roasted chicken.
“I wanted to bring you this,” Leland said over the laughs carrying up from the arcade. His navy polo popped against the red-rock arches of the hall.
“Why?” I tilted my head. “Is it Thanksgiving?”
It was July 13th. Summer solstice season.
“It’s your dinner,” he said. “What’s Thanksgiving?”
“A holiday. It’s for . . .” Did they teach witches American history? It didn’t matter. “Honestly, it’s for eating. Turkey and ham and . . .” I took the plate, glanced down at the heavy portions, and then back up at him. “You made me a Thanksgiving plate?”
“Belinda,” he said. “She’s really excited you’re here.”
“Belinda.” My lips pressed together in a straight line as I wildly imagined him prying the plate from her hands, then I had to remind myself it was his job.
He lifted his chin, looking over my shoulder at the broader space behind me. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I sighed, waving him in, taking three steps before —
Leland froze, but too late. He was already blinking at the mountain of lingerie on the bed.
The latex, the Sexy Healer costume.
Then he stopped blinking, his hazel eyes as frozen as his posture. I set the plate down on my desk and covered my face with my hands, privately turning the color of a ripe tomato.
“What is that?” he asked sharply.
“Skye said it would help me pass my classes?”
A beat of silence passed. Then another.
The red flush spread down to my chest. Pass my classes? The ones where Leland was going to be my teacher?
“You realize I was assigned to teach you?”
I spoke from behind my hands. “Uh huh.”
He slowly approached the bed, gripping the end of it with flexed forearms. His eyes moved in memorization, the kind I knew he needed for Refresh and Vanishing spells.
“What drawer do you want it in?” he asked.
None, I thought. Because I was donating it. “I have a system — ”
“System’s not working for me. What drawer?”
“Dresser.” I peeled my hands from my face and waved broadly at the one closest to the mirror.
All of it Vanished in one go, presumably to where I’d indicated, though I didn’t care to check his work. I’d do it later. When I wasn’t in the same four hundred square feet as him.
His eyes dropped to my wrists. “Cuffs still working?”
“Yep.”
Interactions with him were confusing. He’d been short at the Blacklight, couldn’t get away fast enough after my trial, and apparently didn’t care to tell me anything personal, as I’d had to find out from Belinda that he was a Seven.
Yet sometimes, like now, his eyes were ringed with concern, words were on the tip of his tongue, and he looked at me like it was all an act. It was infuriating.
“What do you want, Leland? Why are you here?”
I turned away from him and eyed the plate on my desk.
There was plenty of food, but nothing to eat it with, so I held a hand out, waiting for Leland to put a set of utensils in it.
Then I sat down at the desk, pushing the second rolling chair toward him so he could sit. At a distance. With my back turned.
I stabbed a bite of cold chicken and said again, “Why are you here?”
“I’m here” — I heard the wheels of his chair roll and pictured him sinking back, stretching an arm behind his head in a relaxed position — “to ask what you’re still doing in Everden.”
“How nice of you.” After the discomfort in my chest went away, I had to smile at my sarcasm.
Joking wasn’t something I did. I couldn’t.
Because people believed what I said. I hate you, for instance.
When I was a kid, I hit a few people pretty hard with that one, before I learned to keep my phrasing safe and literal.
Not with Leland though. With Leland it was different. With Leland, I could say anything.
There was a dull sound, like his hand dropped to the armrest, and maybe he leaned forward a little.
“You want to go home,” he said. “The human realm is safer for you. They gave you what you wanted, but you chose Everden. Why would you do that to yourself?”
“Well.” I set my fork on my desk, thinking about how to answer as I turned to him. He was sitting exactly how I’d pictured, gracefully occupying the chair. “Skye has encouraged me to figure out what’s going on with Helen.” I dragged my eyes to his. “And you were also a factor.”
“Explain.”
“You made a Dark Deal with Jaxan. I figured that came with a Death Bond. Why would I want to go home if it’s going to kill someone you care about?”
“What do you mean, someone I care about?”
“Isn’t that the rule? You can’t put a Death Bond on an Unselected witch? You were five when you made the Deal.”
“Ember.” His eyes closed for a long second, and then he opened them again slowly. “Don’t do that. Don’t make decisions because of me.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “Not completely. I made it for both of us. I . . .” I sighed. “I don’t need the guilt.” The nightmares that started after Dad’s accident were bad enough.
“You aren’t safe here.”
“I have a way out,” I said, shoving down the memory of Helen eagerly lifting her pointer finger. “Three strikes, remember? When I’m ready to go home, I’ll call Farrah Prolix, say God God God, and be gone.”
“That would be the worst thing you could do.”
“Fine. Then I’ll steal three magazines with your face on them.”
“Do you plan on burning them?”
“I don’t,” I said, because I couldn’t. “I plan on donating them to the second-year victims of your Disintegrating spell.”
His face pointed up at the stone ceiling, and he shook his head, his fingers pensively tapping. “I have to go plan lessons,” he said, pushing up from his chair.
Lessons didn’t start for weeks, but I wasn’t going to argue with him.
“Bring your plate to the cafeteria when you’re done,” said Leland. “Dishes Vanish from the tables. Doesn’t matter which one.”
The cuffs were clearly working because there was no longer an overwhelming need to peel my skin off and scream at random intervals. Still, there was an urge to keep him close to me every time he threatened to leave. He reached for the door, and I remembered . . .
“Leland?”
Reluctantly, he turned.
“Skye doesn’t want to be my backup handler. She wants to be a water Elemental. So whatever arrangement you two made, please release her from it.”
He looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression, then said, “There’s no arrangement, Ember. Skye just wants to be your friend.”
“What? Why would — ”
He pulled open the door. “One more thing.” He inclined his head toward my dresser. “Don’t wear it to my classroom.”
The door clicked softly behind him.
After he left, I picked absentmindedly at my dinner, ignoring the three new messages I’d received from Belinda. With the supplies Skye bought me at Briary’s, I drew a pretty bad picture of a mermaid on a sheet of parchment, wrote Welcome to Creatus at the top, then left it on Skye’s bed.