Chapter Six
SIX
The first thing I notice when I wake up is how stiff my neck is. It feels as if it’s coiled tightly by rubber bands about to snap at any given moment. The groan I let out is raspy and dry. Stars, my throat feels completely raw.
I pry one eye open at a time, blinking blearily up at the low white ceiling, trying to get my bearings. I look to my left and see a dozen metal-framed beds, stationed side by side along the wall, each with grey linen tucked in tightly.
The air smells clean, sterile.
I cast my eyes down the length of my body to find myself in an identical bed with the grey sheet half strewn across me, as if I kicked it off in my sleep. My brain makes quick sense of my surroundings. I’m in the infirmary.
But how did I …
‘You’re awake!’ A familiar voice whisper-shouts from my right.
Tilly is at my side with a water pitcher and a glass in her hands.
Gone are her grey robes; instead she’s wearing a long black skirt that reaches her ankles and a soft brown sweater.
‘I heard about what happened, that bloody psycho!’ She places the glass and pitcher down on the bedside table next to me and sits on the wooden three-legged stool beside it.
‘I can’t believe they let him do that to you. ’
My first thought is, what is Tilly doing here? My second is, what the hell is she talking about? They let who do what to me? Then the words ‘I’ll kill you’ flash into my mind.
My body stills.
The memories slam into me. Entering the Malachite tower.
Landing on my knees. The student with the black eyes.
I’ll kill you. I gasp. My hands reach for my throat as I recall what happened.
How furious he was. The way his top lip curled back from his teeth as he yelled in my face.
The feeling of his hands fisting my robes until they began to cut off my air supply.
My vision caving in at the sides. Then nothing. After that, it all goes blank.
‘I was attacked,’ I say, pushing through the scratchiness in my voice.
She nods.
‘How did I get here?’ I have no memory of being taken to the infirmary at all.
With great effort, I push myself up into a sitting position.
I feel like this conversation shouldn’t be had laying down.
Tilly reaches forward and presses a cold glass of water into my hands.
‘Thanks,’ I rasp and bring it up to my lips, taking several small sips until the cold liquid has soothed the ache in my throat.
She takes the cup from me and sets it back down before shooting me a sympathetic smile that has my stomach turning this way and that. It must be bad, based on the way she starts to chew on her bottom lip.
‘Just tell me, Tilly,’ I urge, needing to know how bad it got out there.
Again, her head bobs in understanding, but it takes a minute as she finds the right words to say.
‘So, after Harley – that’s his name, by the way – did what he did to you,’ she points at my neck, ‘you fell unconscious and from what I was told … they left you there.’
‘What do you mean? Left me where?’
Tilly shifts in her seat uncomfortably. ‘In your unit. They just left you laying on the floor during the rest of the ceremony. The only reason you were brought here is because you didn’t show up for your first Sympathetic Magic class this morning and the professor sent someone from your unit to search for you. ’
My stomach pitches.
‘They found you on the floor, absolutely freezing. With bruises around your throat …’ Her voice fades to a whisper, or maybe it’s the blood rushing in my ears that causes her to sound quieter, more distant.
I don’t move. I barely blink as her words splinter beneath my skin.
They left me there. All night and morning.
All of them?
How can they be so cold and cruel? To have to walk past me, around me, over me? As they all went their separate ways and went to bed. Then to come back out in the morning and head to their classes. None of them cared. Not even one checked to see if I was all right.
Not even—
Not even Sebastian.
His betrayal hits harder than the memory of the attack itself. It cuts deep, twisting sharply in my chest.
Did he come back through the door once the ceremony was over to find me lying there in a heap, unconscious? I picture him stepping over me, my unconscious form a mere inconvenience to where he needs to go. Undeserving, he called me.
My eyes squeeze shut as my head drops.
Do not cry, Aria. Not over them. Over him.
My eyes prick with heat anyway. I bite the insides of my cheeks to stop my chin from wobbling.
‘Are you okay?’ Tilly asks ever so softly from beside me. I hear the scrape of her chair being pulled closer to the bed, then feel her fingers gently thread through mine, balled into fists on my lap.
My eyes open. I look at her, at the flecks of green and brown in her eyes; the freckles dotted along her cheekbones and nose. Her hand squeezes mine and that small connection she offers me, that gesture of kindness, does something to my chest. Causes it to tighten.
I want to tell her I’m fine, to put on a brave face and not show her how I really feel, but for some reason I have a strong urge to let myself be vulnerable with her.
Who knows, once I walk out of this infirmary, I might not get the chance to let myself feel my true emotions again.
Emotions are a weakness, and if I’m in Malachite, there will be no room for weakness. It’ll get me killed.
‘No,’ I find myself replying honestly. ‘Not really.’
My brother is dead. I’m in a place where everyone hates me and won’t bat an eye when someone tries to hurt me.
I was physically attacked by a stranger to the point where I became unconscious and not one person tried to help me.
Not even the person I thought I could count on.
They all just left me there as if I wasn’t worth stopping for.
‘I’m so sorry, I wish I knew what happened earlier but I—’
‘Don’t,’ I stop her. ‘You have nothing to apologise for. You didn’t do this. In fact, you seem to be the only person at this academy that’s giving me the time of day.’ I still don’t understand why that is, if I’m honest.
‘You say that as if it’s a surprise.’
‘That’s because it is. Everyone else looks at me like they either hate me, or they fear what I might do to them.’ I saw the way they looked at me as I walked toward the dais, like a snake was in their midst.
‘Well, I’m not everyone,’ she states softly, a flicker of defiance in her eyes. ‘I don’t blame you for what happened here and if I was afraid of you, I wouldn’t be here. If I’m honest … I already feel like I know you.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
Her lips purse, then she whips her head around, her curls bouncing with the sudden movement. She scans the empty vicinity before she leans in, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I dreamed of you, Arianell. More times than I can count these past few months. But you can’t tell anyone that.’
I blink. She what?
‘You … dreamed of me?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘Are you sure? How?’
‘Positive. At first, I had no clue why this white-haired figure kept popping up in my dreams. I get recurring ones often, sometimes even lucid ones, so I brushed it off at first. But one morning—’ She swallows and looks around the room once more.
‘One morning, I went into my aunt’s office to find her, and there sitting on her desk was a picture of you.
You were standing with your brother and parents in the picture. ’
My skin prickles.
‘I immediately made the connection that you were the figure in my dream. I didn’t just make you up in my mind, you were real!
Then I saw you outside the Grand Hall and it was like I was being pulled back into a memory that I had lived over and over.
My dreams are never just dreams, Arianell.
It’s why I chose Opal. My aunt thinks I could become a seer if I master my Divination classes. ’
A seer?
Stars, I was in her dreams.
How did a picture of my family find its way inside her aunt’s office?
My fingers find my temples and begin to rub in small circles.
Everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours is causing my brain to throb.
It’s a lot to take in. I feel like I should be freaking out right now, throwing questions at Tilly left, right and centre, but oddly, I’m numb.
Maybe it was the loss of oxygen to my brain last night, or the fact that someone dreaming about me is at the bottom of my totem pole of concerns.
The top of it being: someone tried to murder me.
‘Arianell?’ she prompts, making me realise I’ve been silent for a while.
‘Aria,’ I correct, dropping my hands into my lap. ‘Just call me Aria.’
A soft smile curves her full lips. ‘I know this is a lot to take in but I need you to understand that I already feel protective over you. Which I know might seem strange because you’ve only just met me,’ she says a little sheepishly.
‘But I feel like our paths were supposed to cross, and I dreamed of you because we were meant to find each other in this place.’
‘I’m not so sure being friends with me is a good idea.’ I say it as a warning, not a rejection of her offer of friendship. Hell, I need a friend right now. ‘I mean, look at where I am, for instance.’
Tilly laughs. It’s light and airy, refreshing after all the heaviness I’ve felt recently.
‘Aria! This is exactly why I think we’re supposed to be friends.
’ She gestures to my bed. ‘You need someone on your side, and I firmly believe it’s supposed to be me.
I can feel it, in here.’ She presses a hand to her chest. ‘Now what do you say? Are you ready to get out of here and show those assholes that they didn’t win? ’