Chapter Nineteen
NINETEEN
Before I can leave Bartollo’s office, Nicks tells me that I need to wait outside the doors for him. I obey reluctantly, just glad to be out of that room and separated from the oppressing presence radiating off Bartollo. I swear, being near him is almost suffocating.
Raised voices occasionally reach my ears as I wait, pacing up and down the length of the door and scuffing my shoes along the floor.
I can’t hear specifics, but I recognise Sebastian’s voice a few times – whatever they’re saying in there, he sounds livid.
Though his being livid doesn’t seem to be so unusual; he’s often walking around like someone pissed in his shoes these days.
Just as I feel myself getting restless, the doors open and Nicks and Sebastian storm out, the latter slamming the doors shut behind him loudly. The look on his face could make a grown man soil himself, especially as he stalks right up to me and presses his chest to mine. I back up involuntarily.
‘Rein it in,’ Nicks warns, slapping a large hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, pulling him away from me. ‘Not here.’
‘This is your fault,’ Sebastian hisses at me, shaking his head in disbelief as he allows Nicks to move him. And I say allow, because they’re almost equal in size and if Sebastian didn’t want to be moved, he wouldn’t.
My mouth opens to dispute his words, because I’m reaching my tipping point of being blamed for things I haven’t done.
In fact, I’m not sure how I haven’t already soared past my tipping point and exploded right into acting like a cornered animal and scratching the eyes out of everyone that comes near me.
‘I said not here!’ Nicks points a finger at me, silencing my unspoken words with the harsh look he sends my way. ‘Both of you get back to Malachite. Now.’
Nicks is the one who lets me into our unit. Sebastian stalked ahead of us and entered first. We find him standing with his arms crossed over his chest in the middle of the common room. Two students come through the door on the left, stopping in their tracks when they look between the three of us.
‘You.’ Nicks points to them. ‘Either go back to your rooms or get to class.’
They gawk at him for a split second before their heads drop and they hurry past, ducking behind me and Nicks to exit out of the gate.
‘I didn’t do it,’ I blurt the moment the students are gone, just in case I didn’t make myself clear enough to Nicks and Sebastian earlier. I have no idea what they were talking about while I was subjected to waiting outside, but in case Nicks has any doubts, I need him to know. I did not do this.
‘I never thought you did.’
‘Wait, what? Why the hell did I need to be questioned if you thought I was innocent?’
‘Because what I think is of no consequence to the headmaster. You’re just lucky that having no way to get in the gates worked in your favour. Because that was the only leg you had to stand on in there.’
No way to get in that they know of.
‘I believe you’re forgetting my sufficient lack of basic navigation and combat skills and capabilities that made me look like I don’t know my right foot from my left.’ I aim a pointed look Sebastian’s way.
‘That’s weird.’ Sebastian scratches his chin. ‘I believe you were supposed to say thank you, but it sounded like you were complaining instead.’
‘Thank you?’ My voice raises a few octaves as I fight to not stomp my foot at him. Oh, the audacity this man has is staggering.
‘You’re welcome. See, was that hard?’
I picture myself walking over and jabbing him in the throat. That’d wipe the self-assured look off his face.
‘You made me look like an idiot!’
‘I made you look innocent!’ he bites back harshly.
‘All right, that’s enough,’ Nicks interrupts, walking over to place a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze.
‘I didn’t pull you in here so I could listen to you two squabble.
There’s a more pressing issue that we need to discuss, and it’s that someone here is trying to frame you for Harley’s murder.
If it wasn’t for Sebastian, they probably would have succeeded. ’
My eyes narrow. ‘Why would someone try to frame me?’ I ask, crossing over to the sofa and perching on the arm. ‘I don’t even know Harley.’ Just the way his hands feel around my throat.
‘It’s not about whether you knew him, he was simply an opportunity. Whoever it was doesn’t want you here, Miss Nocthare. Your mere presence is a threat to them, and you’ll find the list of people in this academy that feel that way is an extensive one.’
My shoulders drop as realisation dawns. Harley wasn’t killed because somebody wanted him dead. He wasn’t the target. I was.
‘Because of Lukas.’ My voice is just above a whisper but I see Sebastian’s hands curl into fists at his sides as if I had spat the words at him.
‘Yes. Because of your brother,’ Nicks agrees. ‘Which is why I’m concerned whoever it was will retaliate once they discover their plan didn’t work, despite the lengths they went to.’
Lengths like strangling him to mirror the marks he left on my skin.
‘So, send her home,’ Sebastian suggests, his tone clipped. He turns to Nicks, voice steady but underlying with impatience. ‘Find a way to make it so she cannot be here due to concerns for her personal safety.’
‘I’m not leaving!’ I demand, leaping off the couch.
‘No, you’re not,’ Nicks interjects. ‘If every student went home each time they felt their personal safety was in danger, we wouldn’t have a Warrior Unit. It would cease to exist. What we need to do is keep you protected for the foreseeable future, or at least until I can figure out who did this.’
‘And how do you propose we do that?’ Sebastian asks. ‘I’m not posting someone outside her door at night; that would only raise suspicion and cause people to think she gets special treatment.’
That might be the first thing we agree on. Plus, I don’t like the thought of some stranger standing watch outside my door while I lay in bed, asleep and vulnerable.
Nicks shakes his head. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of placing someone in her room. It’d be inconspicuous, no one needs to know. Like you said, we don’t need to place a bigger target on her back.’
‘I don’t want some stranger sleeping in my room!’ I protest. Is he insane? I don’t see how this idea is any better.
‘It won’t be a stranger. It will be someone that I trust.’ Nicks pauses for a few breaths before gesturing to Sebastian and giving us both a pointed look.
It takes about two seconds for me to catch onto what Nicks is proposing, and less than that to react.
‘No.’ I point at Nicks. ‘No!’ I repeat, more firmly.
The last person I need in my personal space, the one place where I get to enjoy the silence and step away from the glaring eyes and whispered vitriol, is him.
‘Maybe this has nothing to do with me and you’re wrong?
Harley could have angered the wrong person. ’
‘And if you’re mistaken and there is someone who’s trying to target you?
Do you really want to take that risk?’ Nicks asks, his voice dipping low.
Before I get a chance to answer he bombards me with another question.
‘Do you know how many third-year students are in Malachite right now, Miss Nocthare?’
I shake my head.
‘Twenty,’ he informs me, then turns to Sebastian. ‘Zain, how many students started with you in Malachite in your first year?’
‘Thirty-one, sir.’
Nicks’s eyes return to mine. There’s a twitch above his upper lip as if just hearing the loss stokes a fire in his gut.
‘That’s eleven students dead in under three years.
Not counting the three deaths the second-year students have already added to the growing death toll my unit has suffered.
So, excuse me, Miss Nocthare, if I don’t want to add to that number by taking this lightly.
’ His voice is like a slap against my skin.
It makes me want to shrink back, to lower my chin in submission, but I grit my teeth and nod instead.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, sir. But Sebastian won’t want to do this. And with all due respect, I don’t care that you trust him. Because I don’t.’
‘With all due respect, Miss Nocthare …’ Nicks stalks over to me, his black boots thudding quietly over the plush rug until he’s right in my face, towering over me, ‘… Sebastian will do what he’s ordered.
And I couldn’t give two shits about your trust in him or lack of.
So, you too, will do as you’re fucking asked and not make this harder than it needs to be. Do. You. Understand?’
I’ve never seen Nicks like this during the short time I’ve been in his presence. Suddenly, I can picture him walking through clusters of students in the Training Centre, barking orders and hauling them to their feet when they slack off.
Nicks is by no means a small man. He’s tall and carries a heavy presence with him wherever he goes, but for some reason I hadn’t yet registered him as a threat.
My brain seemed to look at him as someone to revere, rather than fear.
Now, as his eyes bore into mine and the commanding tone of his voice sinks its way into my bones, I wonder if I was mistaken.
This is the man in charge of training Malachite warriors, and I’d better start remembering that.
‘Yes, Professor. I understand.’
‘Good. And if it makes you feel any better, I will ask Lillian McVoy to take shifts with Sebastian. I’m sure between the three of you, you can come to an arrangement.’