Chapter Twenty-One #3
He clapped definitively and stood. “Very good. You’ll want to be right on time for breakfast in a few hours. Tiramisu crepes this morning!”
I tried to hide my confusion as he was already at my chair and showing me the door.
“Wouldn’t it be charming if we found them?” he asked as we walked, stooping a little to add quietly, “But I don’t expect we will. Nevertheless, I was promised I’d get to pet a bloodhound. Do try to stay out of trouble. It would be a shame to lose you before the rest of the Council comes around.”
He straightened his jacket with his sights set on the hatch passage, and I didn’t know what else to do besides walk off to the library and hang out there until the cafeteria opened for breakfast.
* * *
I resumed my perusal of The Blackburn Artifacts under dull candlelight.
I was familiar with the Blackburns’ Lens of Intentions, the letterboxes, and the Everblade that Jaxan now had, but learning about Helen’s fourth artifact, the Ring of Greatest Fear, sent a shiver down my spine and blood pounding in my ears.
When the bearer rotates the Ring of Greatest Fear’s oval pendant three times, clockwise, their intended target will experience delusions of their worst fears come to life. With enough repetitions, the delusions will eventually trigger on their own, with no proximity to the ring required.
A hollowness swallowed me, my eyes drifted over the page, and deciding there was nothing else I wanted to learn about her, I closed the text.
And jumped back a bit. The front legs of my chair lifted centimeters off the ground as I rocked backward, startled by the presence of a five-pound, white bunny rabbit. Pepper jumped on the table, her bright, black eyes pertinent.
“Oh, hi, Pepper,” I said, offering her a hand to sniff as Belinda poked her head around a shelf.
“Ooo, artifacts,” Belinda said, rounding the shelf and eyeing the text I was trying to forget.
“There’s no way the Echelon Helen Blackburn actually uses the Ring of Greatest Fear one, right?
Just wears it? I mean . . .” She exhaled a laugh.
“Brain bleed and babble? Who would survive being on the receiving end of that!?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, hurrying away from the table, struggling to breathe as I felt like the walls of my rib cage were caving in. “I can’t — I have to go.”
“But I have to give you your invitation!” she yelled over the stacks.
“Hello,” Rayne said, intercepting me in the arcade. “You look like you could use some flowers.” She used her gift openly. It was one of my favorite things about the Creation Academy. Sweet-smelling flowers everywhere you looked. “What kind should I make?”
I didn’t want this to turn into a whole thing, so I just said, “Snapdragons.”
Rayne made them for me, and on my way up the spiral to shower, I left the stem of peach petals by Belinda’s door.
* * *
I ran into Leland at the bacon station a few hours later. “Strike?” he asked, swinging tongs to my plate and loading it with a heap of bacon. From fifty feet away at the fourth-year table, Vyra skewered us with a stare.
“Yep,” I said. “Trespassing.”
He nodded, not surprised by this. “How’s research going?” he asked conversationally. He’d had a thirty-minute walk to ask me this this morning, but for whatever reason, he wanted to discuss it now.
“Hard,” I replied, focusing on the concerning pop of grease as his arm hovered over the sizzling stainless-steel serving pan.
If it burned him . . .
I took a breath and redirected my thoughts back to his question, not that I wanted to talk about it. At least I didn’t think I did, until it all rushed out.
“Do you know what it’s like to stare out a window waiting for someone?
Past the point you know they’re not coming, but you wait anyway because you don’t know why they’re not coming.
And that seems like . . . like maybe there was a misunderstanding, like they were held up.
Then, one day, you realize you’ve been staring out the window so long there’s nothing left of you for them to even come home to, because every opportunity you had to be something is already gone, wasted in waiting.
And so, trying to understand Helen is like” — my arm swooped a little, the porcelain plate a hundred pounds in my hand as the floor seemed to sway under my feet — “a constant reminder of the parts of myself I lost waiting for her. And she’s been . . .”
My throat was sore, and I was visibly having a hard time breathing.
“Ember.” Leland’s jaw worked slowly. “Thank you for telling me that.” His demeanor had shifted entirely.
Formal. Reserved. “I need you to take your plate to your room now.” His eyes, having gone cloudy, would not meet mine, and he twisted his torso in the direction of the fourth-year table, seeking someone out. “Will you please do that for me? Now?”
Rayne sprang up and rushed over, and before I’d even left the buffet area, she embraced him in a tight hug. I was shocked, not sure what I’d done, though Rayne kept repeating to me, “You didn’t do anything. You did nothing wrong.”
But looking at Leland, his shoulders hunched and his arms on the cusp of tense trembling, I wasn’t sure I believed her. He didn’t even lift his head to thank the kitchen workers, and he always thanked them.
My heart twisting, I headed out of the cafeteria, trying not to make eye contact with Belinda as I slipped past the dining tables.
* * *
That evening, the paper reported the Oracle had risen from the depths of the Silverstone swamp, chanting the missing Sevens were in danger.
Farrah Prolix was sticking to her story that I was helping the Allwitches smuggle Aspirants into Alchemia, which didn’t make any sense because there were shadows involved in the abductions.
But Farrah was convinced the Allwitches were framing Dark Witches and taking Aspirants to strengthen their numbers.
The animal handler had found nothing to refute her story, though Starvos did get to pet his bloodhound, which was on the cover. And after staring at the paper far too long, I messaged Leland.
Ember Blackburn: Why didn’t you tell me you were a Seven?
Leland Stray: Because I’m trying to forget.
Ember Blackburn: I looked it up. There aren’t that many fourth-year Sevens. Four have gone missing. Aren’t you worried you’re next?
Leland Stray: There’s a package at your door.
Ember Blackburn: What?
Leland Stray: A package, Ember.
Clutching my transmitter, I walked to the door and brought in a medium-sized package wrapped in thick brown paper.
I opened it on my bed and unpacked T-shirts, with white long sleeves and the royal-blue logos of the Creation Academy’s mascot, the desert sea serpent.
The shirts were cool to the touch, as if refrigerated, or like his cooling jacket, laced with cooling magic because I’d overheated earlier.
My transmitter buzzed.
Leland Stray: Another thing. You’re not running alone anymore.
Leland Stray: And I’m sorry for earlier.
* * *
In the middle of the night, I woke up screaming. I rolled out of bed, stumbled on unbalanced legs, and crawled across the area rug to hurl into the fire.
Skye sprang out of her bed and shoved a wastebasket under my chin, pulling it away when my stomach stopped convulsing, so the smell wouldn’t trigger my gag reflex again.
My nose stung. Hot bile burned the back of my throat and carved through my sinuses.
I scooted to lean back against my bed, then dropped my head against the frame and shut my eyes tight to stop water from leaking out of them.
My stomach was tired, so tired. My abdomen rose and fell in a rhythm so jagged, it almost felt like breathing wasn’t worth it.
To take my mind off it, I started thinking about Gray.
I thought about the night we were supposed to camp, but he didn’t come, only my mind was tired and twisted it.
I relived a different version of that night, one where Gray showed up to my backyard early.
We set up the tent together, and we slept in past breakfast, under one blanket, with his arm around me.
Our door slammed, shaking me from the fantasy. My perception held on just enough for me to realize Skye had left, leaving Nova behind to watch over me.
Nova pounced on my bed, circled, and had finally settled above my shoulders when I heaved, missing the wastebasket.
I stayed hunched, one hand planted on the carpet and a string of drool collecting in my hood.
I couldn’t keep going like this. I was too tired.
It was too hard. And with the only peace I knew behind my eyelids, I closed them.
Gray, think of Gray. His soul-bending, ice-blue eyes and how it would feel to hear him ask me to stay. Touches with loaded meanings. Silences only he and I could understand. Eyes full of promises and the secret messages in the texts he sent. I felt wrapped in his arms as consciousness slipped away.
Then the phantom arm around me changed.
Less heavy. It felt more real. Longer. Leaner. It felt like Leland.
I blinked at the tattooed arm around my waist, helping me lie back on the floor. His hand cradled my neck, and a pillow slid under my head.
“Fix it,” Skye said, pointing straight down at me.
“How long has she been like this?” he asked. His eyes were alert, but his voice was husky, a tired, low rumble that matched his mussed-up hair.
“Twenty minutes,” Skye said. “It happens every time she has a nightmare.”
My stomach clenched and I started to cough.
“I need you to leave,” Leland said.
I can’t, I thought. I couldn’t even hold up my head.
“Not you,” Skye said, her voice like an eyeroll.
Oh.
“Are you going to be okay if I leave you with him?” she asked, arms crossed with her face directly over mine.
Out of fear of vomiting all over Leland, I didn’t speak.
But I managed a noise, a small squeak from the back of my throat that could’ve meant yes or no.
Alone with Leland was always a problem, but Skye had pulled him out of bed, she was tired, my early mornings were wearing on her, and so it was okay, I guessed, if Leland and I had to be alone.
The door clicked shut as Skye went out, leaving Nova on my bed, vigilantly watching.
“I need to check your stomach,” he said. “That okay?”
I stared up at the ceiling, but somewhere in my eyes, I guess he found a nod.
His hands slid under my sweatshirt, and he pressed around my abdominal muscles.
I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see his reaction to having to wade through my sweat-drenched torso, the pooling in my navel.
His hands moved quickly, gently. Warm, like Trist’s had been.
And when he tucked my shirt back down, I wasn’t nauseous anymore.
He repositioned himself at my head. “Going to check your head,” he said, just as his thumbs brushed lightly over my temples.
I closed my eyes, and a few minutes later, my headache was gone. He touched the back of his hand to my forehead, and I cooled.
Then he Refreshed my sweatshirt and the rug, calling for Skye after he Vanished the wastebasket, though she was already pushing her way back in.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” Leland lied.
“Seems like you do if you made her stop puking.”
“Puking ran its course.”
“Will there be another course when she wakes up again?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Not sure.”
Skye often looked angry, irritated, but always in a loving way, her frowns seconds away from turning into a sly smile. But in that moment, there was nothing loving about the way she looked at Leland. She looked like she might kill him.
“I said fix,” Skye said. “Not treat. Fix.”
Too tired to stay and listen, I pulled my hood over my head and crawled back to bed, drawing the canopy curtains for privacy and leaving them to bicker.
I woke a few hours later and felt fine, except for the desperate need to brush my teeth in the washroom.
I pulled aside the canopy and found Leland asleep in the middle of our floor, his head on the pillow he’d Created for me, his legs under a thin, wool, travel blanket.
Did he deplete last night? Is that why he hadn’t made it back to his room?
Quietly, I got out of bed and lightly stepped around him. Only he wasn’t sleeping.
His hand closed in a circle around my ankle, and his eyes popped open. There was a privacy bubble, a chill, and the fireplace clicked on as his fingers stayed locked around my ankle, holding me in place to listen.
“I didn’t Heal you,” he lied, but I knew what he meant.
As a fourth-year Creator, Leland shouldn’t have healing magic. I may not have known how he’d Healed me, but I did know one thing for certain. Leland was hiding something.