Chapter 10 #2
“What are you doing? Let’s go! Why are you not running to the castle right now?” Calypso snapped from her place on the counter.
“There is a timing to thieving. If I make my move too soon, before I know the ins and outs of this place, I’ll get caught.
Then you won’t have anyone to help you.” And besides, I was way too tired for that right now, anyway.
Not that I was going to tell her that. I doubted she’d give a shit if I was dead on my feet.
Her frustrated scream echoed even after I shut the locket.
Despite Calypso railing at me to follow my ‘finders keepers’ rune immediately, I did as I pleased and checked out the rest of the house.
I noted that the bedroom had a king-sized bed – totally normal size, none of this wall-to-wall mattress stuff that Liam had going on.
The basement was empty except for some stacked-up boxes labelled EP and marked with various years. Maybe one of the old teachers? Possibly. I’d have to ask Liam when I saw him next.
I wondered if he’d be able to get away to check in on me, but as soon as I thought that . . .
“Terrible idea,” I said as I snooped through the cupboards of the kitchen and found them mostly stocked up with the basics. I could do some serious baking while I was here – the thought made me wish for Opie and Bandit.
The bundt pan was unused, practically brand new.
Maybe it was the shock of everything – being cast alone into House Phoenix, almost getting murdered by the gate – but I wasn’t ready to dive back into the fray of the unknown, where I had to weigh every word, and walk on eggshells for fear of being caught.
Not yet, anyway.
Which set me to making a proper pan of sleepy buns. I could test one or two out now and have some left to eat in the morning, before my first official day of school. Who knew if the cook here was anywhere near as good as Mrs. Wickersham?
Halfway through making the dough, a knock on the door jerked my head up, and my heartrate spiked.
Liam maybe? I cringed at the rush of anticipation I felt at the thought.
“Come in.”
The door opened and a dark head was all I saw before I realized it was Gary.
He didn’t look quite the same with his thinned-out, heavily freckled cheeks, and his several shades darker hair, but I’d still recognize him anywhere, even if I hadn’t seen his transformation before.
His hair was wet from the rain that was misting down, and he ran his hand over his head, smoothing it out in a familiar motion.
He shut the door behind him and swallowed hard, throat bobbing.
“Hey. I know we aren’t supposed to be, like, all hanging out together, but I thought if it was just a couple of us and Fable wasn’t here, since you guys were like besties, it might be okay for me and you to hang for a little while? No one saw me come this way . . .”
I grinned. “I’m glad for the company, Gary or . . . what’s your name now?”
“Gerard.” He shrugged, “I can live with it.”
I motioned for him with my hand covered in flour. “What do you think so far?”
Gary shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “The kids in House Wolven aren’t like the ones at Neverthorn.”
I frowned and put the bundt pan aside to sit overnight. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged and scrunched up his face. “They’re like, kinda nice?”
“What do you mean, kinda nice?” Because the thing was, at Neverthorn, House Wolven was almost as bad as House Draconell in the way they treated the other kids.
Mean, loyal only to themselves, and to the cliques that they created within their own house.
New kids in their house had a proving period that looked a hell of a lot like hazing.
“Happy to see me, gave me a good room, and then helped me figure out my timetable for tomorrow. Like . . . not one of them was mean.”
I leaned back against the counter. “What was your house motto again? Do brave deeds?”
“Ah, not just that. We have to do brave deeds and endure.” He shook his head and started to pace a line back and forth between the kitchen and the small living room.
“It’s strange, because my first time at Neverthorn I didn’t really fit in.
With you and the rest of House Phoenix it was like . . . coming home.”
His freckled cheeks pinked up, and he ducked his head.
I grinned, a wash of warmth spreading through my chest. “I feel the same, Gary.”
He pointed a finger at me. I’d never seen him so animated.
“Right? So why does House Wolven here feel . . . close to the way I felt with House Phoenix? It’s only been like five hours, but already we’ve got a few inside jokes.
Like, this one guy Darryl, he’s hilarious.
” A wide smile wreathed his face as he continued.
“He makes everything into a country song. I got a big pile of mashed potatoes at lunch, and this guy just busts out singing at the top of his lungs, ‘New kid Gerard loves him some mashed taters, when he sees ’em comin’ he says ‘see y’all later!
’ He’ll skip the roast beef, and trade all the pie, for a big, creamy bowl piled three feet high.
While other kids dream of magic and power, Gerard just wants spuds, each and every hour.
’” Gary literally slapped one knee and let out a choked laugh.
“Right off the top of his head, like, he came up with that. Cool, right?”
I wasn’t sure I’d classify it as ‘cool,’ but we were ten years apart . . .
“What’s cool is that you aren’t hating life here.” Yet. Who knew when that would change? “I say take the wins where you can get them.”
His smile wavered and he shuffled his feet. “Yeah but . . . like, I don’t want to be disloyal. I felt like I finally fit in, and I love all you guys. Is it wrong that I fit in here and like these guys too?”
Hecate above, how was I supposed to make him feel better about this? I was no therapist, but I was supposed to be the one leading our ragtag group, so I at least had to try to help him. Liam’s words came back to me.
I tapped a finger on the counter. “Liam said that we’d be put into a house that fits best with our natural strengths – the secondary traits we carried instead of House Phoenix. Maybe that’s why you’re so comfortable there?”
“Then why did you get put into House Phoenix?”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek. I sure as hell couldn’t tell him it was because I was Nocta’s daughter and the gates were literally trying to kill me, and, when that’d failed, seemed to have taken it upon themselves to mark me as ‘other.’
“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t have secondary traits?”
I said the words and regretted them, because it implied that . . . that I was the embodiment of House Phoenix in a way no one else was and that made me deeply uncomfortable.
“We should ask Liam.” Gary slowed his pacing and slumped into the chair in the living room.
There were a few things I wanted to ask Liam. But we had to be careful how much time we spent around him . . . especially in public view.
“What we need is to find a way to communicate with each other, in secret. Including with Liam.” A thought poked at me and my hand went to my hip and the small bag of smooth stones the others had given me back at Neverthorn.
Initially, they helped me when my anxiety got out of control, but they had changed since then .
. . or I had. The more I’d touched them the more it seemed like I could sense my friends’ very essence through them.
Maybe we could come up with some way to use that as a means of communicating? We just needed a slick rune to do it.
I dipped my hand into the bag and pulled out one of the stones without looking. Caterina, by the sensation that rolled through me. Almost like picking up a flavor. I closed my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to see what I can pick up from Caterina. Maybe we can figure out a way to use them for communicating?”
It was clear as day now as I focused on the sensations the stone was giving off. Caterina was a little worried, but not fearful or afraid.
“Is she okay?”
I nodded and put Caterina’s stone on the counter. “Yes, she’s good.”
And as I went through the stones, I could feel that she was with Ellie and Marina as planned, which was good.
Gary watched me as I went through the stones. Ross was in the middle of a laughing spurt, the emotions infecting me, making me smile.
The last stone though . . . was Fable.
I scooped it out and the second my fingers closed over it, her fear drove into me like a spike through the brain. Panic, and raw fear like nothing I’d ever felt from her – as if she were being fucking tortured.
Fable was more than in trouble.
She was dying.