Chapter 14
Walnut desks are stroked through the draughty classroom.
Eric Harling moves between them, lowering marked assignments in front of every student he passes. He started moments ago, at the back of the classroom, working his way to the front.
The cordial pace of his brogues is almost soothing on the wooden floorboards; the fluttering of parchment through the air is soft, and blends with his lecture.
It’s soothing.
I sink deeper into my wooden chair. It creaks with my movements.
Courtney tosses me an annoyed look.
In the chair next to me, she’s slouched over, looking like the Hunchback of Bluestone.
My mouth purses as I run my gaze over her curved spine, her inwards shoulders, the frantic scribbling of her pen over paper, desperately trying to keep up with Eric’s lecture.
His voice is drawing closer.
He’s moved through the classroom, handed out the assignments, table by table, student by student, and he’s gaining on us.
I turn my chin to my shoulder.
Eric picks out ink-stained parchment from the shrinking pile in his grip and drops it onto the desk over from mine.
Serena lifts her chin slightly, and the grade that’s marked on her assignment must be sufficient, because she leaves it out in the open and returns to the notebook on her desk.
Landon doesn’t like his grade.
He’s quick to snatch it and furl it up into his fist.
Eric throws him a dark look, but it goes ignored.
Landon tosses the assignment right into the tin basket by the chalkboard.
A chorus of snickers runs through the classroom, but weathered, subdued by the early hour.
Through the windows, the skies are moody and dull, even though the sun rose an hour ago.
Breakfast should be served any minute now in the mess hall, and my stomach is starting to churn.
I swallow back the rising acid.
Eric approaches us, the final desk, and sets down just one stapled bundle of paper.
I frown at the slight stack.
Placed in front of Courtney.
It has her name on it. That’s her B+.
My assignment is nowhere in sight.
Eric answers the question stirring in me before I even lift my frown to him, “We will talk after class.”
He said it so quietly, I doubt anyone but Courtney heard him.
Eric continues on to the head of the classroom—to the chalkboard, and he drones on, ignorant of my dark stare burning into him.
Landon leans over the edge of his desk. His gentle psst lures in my glower.
Unflinching, he hisses across the class, “I need to show you that thing before breakfast.”
My frown doesn’t have the time to burrow into my face before his gaze slides behind me—
To James.
If they share a look, it’s only for the quickest moment, less than a second, before Landon is righting himself in his chair, looking straight ahead.
Slick, real slick.
Guess I’m their buffer, now.
My cheeks swell around a huff and I sag over my workbook.
I don’t take notes.
I tune in and out of Eric’s lecture. I hardly notice the time creep by before movement rustles through the classroom, and everyone’s packing up all around me.
No one hangs back for me.
Everyone is in a rush to get down to the mess hall for breakfast. It’s always like that when Star Theory begins at four in the morning, early to monitor the constellations, the shifts in positions, the dimming of stars as the planet turns on its axis.
I just want breakfast.
But I stay put in my chair, slowly packing up my bag, and wait for the door to shut, for the students to file out.
When that final click echoes through the cold, arched room, I finally look up.
Eric is without the supervising of Master Milton this morning, and so he sits leaning against the main desk, facing me.
I consider the folded paper pinched between his fingers, the faint outline of red ink stains, but I can’t make out what the grade is.
“How are you?” Eric’s question comes with hesitation. His fingers pinch the folded paper that bit tighter. “After Mildred—I wanted… I wondered if you were… well.”
I blink at him, slow and dull, my face unchanging. But the anger doesn’t flicker through me as it did the last time we were alone in a room together.
Because, truthfully, it’s not Eric that’s the problem.
It’s not the grades.
It’s not Asta, it’s not even Mildred Green.
Dray is the root of all my problems, he’s the source of the poison spreading through my life—and now, after what I’ve done, after what I said to Courtney, I’m too numb to even snap at Eric.
I cut my gaze down to the ink stains on the walnut desk.
Eric pushes off the head table. “Did she come after you again? I can report her, Olivia.”
My smile is that corners-pinned-to-the-cheeks sort of grimace. “There’s a reason you didn’t report her then.” There’s nothing malicious in how I say it or how I look at him. I only state the truth. “We all play by certain rules. Even when we don’t want to.”
The honey of his eyes softens, and I swear I’m looking into pools of guilt.
His mouth flattens into a stroked line across his face.
The backpack sits firm on my lap, my fingertips drumming on the leather as I wait for my assignment.
I hint at it, with a glance that cuts to the folded paper, then I check my watch.
Eric’s tongue drags over his bottom lip, a pensive look settling on his face, and he hesitates.
There’s more he wants to say.
I don’t necessarily care to hear any of it.
Just because I’m not angry with him anymore doesn’t mean I want to listen to anything he has to say.
But that doesn’t matter, because he decides to voice his thoughts to me anyway.
“I owe you an apology.” The soles of his brogues come down on the floorboards, a casual advance on me.
“For how I spoke to you last week. It came from a place of confusion. I should have been more… understanding of your position. I thought it was a rumour, though the pieces fit together, I just… I didn’t realise it was definite. ”
He heard the rumours at the ball, so he told me. But rumours are just whispers. Now, Eric seems to know as certainly as I do how dreadful my fate is.
My smile is tight. “Who told you?”
The heat on his cheeks roars like flames in a hearth.
Asta is the obvious answer. But last time I checked, she was more suspicious than certain.
So for Eric to be certain now means that she is, too. And that means either Dray, Landon, Oliver or Serena told her.
Not like it matters who told him.
“Look,” I start with a sigh, “I’m not supposed to know. So please… just keep it to yourself while I… figure this out.”
He takes another step closer. I can smell the overpowering stench of his cologne, cheap and a sting of the nostrils.
Certainly not the good stuff I gifted him.
“The rumours are already circulating,” he tells me.
“But I won’t add to them. If I were in your position…
” Eric trails off into a whooshing breath, and he shakes his head in blatant disbelief.
“I would be reacting a lot worse than throwing attitude around. I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through, Olivia, but if you ever need someone to talk to… ”
He sets the folded assignment down on the edge of the desk. His cheap watch should glisten under the gleams of the lights above, but it’s dusty and grimy, and uncared for. Probably passed through the generations.
I drag the assignment closer, then unfold it.
A-
I stare are the crimson letter for a moment.
My best grade this semester. But it’s only the second week, so there’s still time to rely on the masters to increase my grades in a final act of pity.
This one, I got through blackmail.
But I look at it as plainly as I would if it was a C.
Then I shove the crumpling paper into my backpack. The zip screeches as I tug it shut, then shimmy out of my chair.
“Thanks for the offer,” I say, and sling the strap over my shoulder. “See you around.”
That’s the best I can do. The best way I can accept his apology and push aside my anger towards him.
It’s too distracting.
It’s too draining.
I need my focus on Dray, on shaming him, and on dealing with the panic that flurries up inside of me like a blizzard any time I dare remember what I’ve done.
I throw it from my mind, the interview, the article, the panic, and I leave for the mess hall.
But I’m not feeling so hungry anymore.
On the way down, I stop off at the third-floor bathroom, one of those awful mixed gender bathrooms I loathe to my core, but it’s closest to me when my bladder starts to pang.
Bag strap slung over my shoulder, I keep a brisk pace down the corridor. The wainscotting softens the thuds of my ankle boots on the runner rug.
The constant winter of the mountains creeps into the old manor, through gaps in the windows, slivers in the ceilings, slits in the walls, wherever the chill can invade.
Even with the radiators I pass, bubbles of blissful warmth, my bones start to go rigid against the chill even through the soft material of my cropped slacks.
My steps quicken.
I flick my wrist. The faint clink of my watch slinks into place. Through the mist of my cold breath, the hands tell me I’ve still got another hour before the mess hall shuts.
Hunger still evades me.
But what’s worse than the idea of forcing some food down my throat is the class I have at the end of that hour.
Brews and Theory.
We are still paired boy-girl, and so Dray is still my partner for the class.
Master Welham has made no attempt to split the pairs up, reorganise, or even give us the choice to reevaluate our partners.
Last time, Brews was actual brewing.
Now, it’s a lot of theory.
Two-hour lectures full of Master Welham droning on and on, and me falling asleep in the chair next to Dray who actually pays attention.
I find everything is toned down now when it comes to the lessons.
Star Theory was early, but Eric did most of the mapping and talked us through it, so it was mostly notetaking and info-dumping.
Herbology hasn’t gone out into the gardens yet, and instead, we were given assignment orders to debate properties of similar plants.