Chapter 16 Irene
IRENE
As late afternoon enveloped Blackwood in swirling plumes of fog, the darkening sky painting the grounds in a dusty purple haze, Irene found herself in the Main Yard, tumbling the same question over and over in her mind.
No matter how hard she tried to eradicate the question from her consciousness, it remained, latching onto her, demanding an answer.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Irene pressed her head against the stone statue behind her, groaning in frustration.
She fussed with the golden ring wrapped snugly around her index finger, spinning it over and over in even circles.
She had tried taking it off numerous times since it had first appeared the morning she had taken her place among the Ascended, but whatever magic it was forged with kept it securely fashioned around her finger.
That ring was a part of her now…forever. Whether she wanted it to be or not.
“Did you miss me?”
Irene yelped in surprise, spinning to find Mateo crouched behind her, a twinkle of amusement in his sparkling blue eyes. But her annoyance was quickly replaced by a surge of panic. If someone saw them…if someone saw him—
“Relax,” Mateo muttered, as if reading her thoughts. “Nobody can see me.”
“You don’t know that,” Irene whispered through gritted teeth.
She glanced nervously over her shoulder, half expecting to find someone watching them, but most of Blackwood’s students were still in class, and there didn’t appear to be any Ascended near the Main Yard.
There was nothing but empty benches and burnt-sienna leaves scattered around them.
The gentle creak of barren branches swaying in the breeze.
In the distance, a few students scurried toward their dormitories, textbooks tucked under their arms and heads lowered. But nobody seemed to notice her.
Or, if they did, they were simply too scared of her to look for more than a few seconds.
“Trust me.” Mateo chuckled, leaning back against the stone statue. He stretched his long legs in front of him, twisting a blade of grass between his fingers. His shoulder brushed against Irene’s as he settled beside her. “My cloaking enchantments are impenetrable. Nobody is getting through them.”
“Not even Silas?” Irene challenged.
Mateo’s haughty smirk faltered slightly, though he quickly recovered, eyes sliding toward Irene. “Especially Silas.”
Irene scoffed. “Your ego will be your downfall.”
Mateo shrugged, as if he found her comment more amusing than offensive.
As a comfortable silence fell upon them, Irene sensed Mateo’s gaze landing on her.
There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel inexplicably naked—as if he were reaching into the innermost parts of her with nothing but a single look.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” he whispered suddenly. “About Wren. I needed to be sure you were on our side before I told you.”
Irene had assumed he’d bring it up eventually, but the reminder of Wren’s involvement in the Demien Order’s prophecy still sent a chill down her spine.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” she whispered.
“You don’t know Wren Loughty like I do. She’s annoyingly smart and has more talent in her pinky finger than most could hope for in their lifetime, but…
she’s not a Demien. And she most certainly isn’t capable of ushering in the destruction of Blackwood. ”
Mateo’s voice was uncharacteristically somber when he spoke next.
“But she will be.”
“What does that mean?” Irene asked with a frustrated groan. When Mateo didn’t respond right away, she let out a bitter chuckle and added, “Let me guess. It’s confidential?”
“It’s complicated,” Mateo corrected with an apologetic smile. As his blue eyes flitted up and down her face, something in his expression changed. “Is everything all right? You seem a bit…off.”
Irene flinched at the sudden shift in topic. It was almost as if he could sense her thoughts before she had even thought of them. Pick up on her emotions before they had even materialized in her mind.
“I had my first Council test today,” Irene replied softly, swallowing. The mere thought of the dungeons was enough to send a wave of nausea up her throat. The stench of blood seemed to follow her everywhere. The howling cries of agony burned into her memory.
Mateo’s face hardened. “Ah. I had assumed Everly and Samira’s presence this morning had something to do with that.”
A gentle breeze drifted between them.
“Did you know about the dungeons?” Irene asked, though a part of her was afraid to know the answer.
A thin rivulet of shadows momentarily flickered beneath the skin of Mateo’s exposed forearms. He rarely let the shadows slip out of him anymore—it was clear to Irene that he made an effort to hold them back in front of her.
To appear as normal as he could. So Irene did her best not to flinch at the sudden reminder of the darkness inside him.
“I’ve heard of them,” Mateo replied, voice hoarse.
Irene tore her gaze away from him, looking out toward the oak trees lining the path to the Main Yard. She watched the gnarled branches shift and move, the crawling vines shiver in the late-afternoon glow.
“I thought Demiens were supposed to be the cruel ones,” she whispered. “The ones who had lost their emotions—”
“Some of us have,” Mateo interjected. “Most of us have.”
“Well…” Irene let out a bitter chuckle. “It turns out Blackwood and the Demien Order aren’t so different after all.”
As the words left her lips, Mateo’s expression abruptly darkened. He winced, clutching his head, as if a sudden pain had blossomed in his skull. Irene instinctively reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
When Mateo’s eyes landed on hers, Irene couldn’t stop the gasp that sprang out of her.
Shadows.
His eyes were entirely blotted out by shadows, as if completely submerged in swirling pools of ink. Mateo shut his eyes, grimacing. When his eyelids fluttered back open, the whites of his eyes had returned to normal.
There you are, Irene thought with a sigh of relief. But what she actually managed to say out loud was “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing.” Mateo cleared his throat, awkwardly shifting onto his feet. “I just…I received a communication from the Order’s base. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Irene wanted to pry. She wanted to demand answers.
But staring up at Mateo, his face haloed by the approaching silver glow of night, she knew that her interrogation would be pointless.
That she would remain unfairly tethered to the sidelines until she proved to the Demien Order that she was truly one of them.
“Off on another mysterious excursion that you’ll tell me nothing about?” she asked with a teasing lilt.
Mateo’s lips lifted into a rueful smile. “Something like that.”
And then he vanished, disappearing into the night before Irene could get another word out. There was no puff of smoke. No remnant of a relocation spell. It was simply as if he had blinked out of existence—one moment there, and the next…gone.
Irene sat in the Main Yard for a few more minutes, ruminating on her conversation with Mateo.
As evening settled upon Blackwood in a shimmering blanket of silver light and feathered clouds of fog, she decided it was time to make her way back to the Ascended Quarters.
But as she stood and began walking onto the main path, a sudden noise caused her to stagger to a halt.
A voice.
A deep, familiar voice.
“Apologies for the intrusion.”
A strange whirling sensation clutched her skull, a terrible sense of vertigo.
And then it was as though the ground beneath her had slipped away, the world of Blackwood Academy swallowed by darkness. She was falling, plummeting into nothingness, descending deeper and deeper, until—
Irene’s eyes snapped open with a gurgled gasp. She was standing in a clearing. A sickening trace of nausea curled around her throat as she gathered her bearings, eyes trailing the dense forest surrounding the perimeter of the clearing.
And standing before her, a coy smile on his face, was Headmaster Silas.
Panic surged through Irene.
He knows.
He knows about Mateo.
Silas stalked forward, rotten yellow leaves crunching beneath his boots. “Hello, Irene.”
Irene managed a nonchalant sigh, trying her best to keep her composure. “You couldn’t just have called me into your office like a normal person, could you?”
Silas smirked, the thin lines beneath his eyes deepening.
Does he look older? It wasn’t possible, since none of them aged that way in the afterlife, and yet…
something about him seemed different. It had always been impossible to pinpoint how old the Headmaster of Blackwood Academy was.
He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, give or take a few years, with dark, gray-speckled hair and sharp features.
But Irene swore his appearance had changed.
He looked tired. The lines between his brows more marked.
But maybe it was simply that she hadn’t properly looked at him this way until she’d become an Ascended. Now…she saw him. Truly saw him.
“Oh…but where’s the fun in that?” Silas asked with a smirk.
Irene suppressed the urge to throttle him, squeezing her hands into tight fists.
“How can I help you, Headmaster?” She made sure to carefully enunciate the formal title. If Silas noticed her subtle jab, he didn’t show it. He simply kept his stoic gaze on her, unnervingly still.
“I know this hasn’t been easy for you…” he said. “Joining the Ascended after what happened to your friends.”
Irene stiffened. She hadn’t been expecting that. Is that what he called me here for?
Her chest tightened at the unwelcome memories attempting to break free. “They…they weren’t my friends.”
“Ah. Right.” Silas shifted closer. “What was it that Mr. Dupont had called you all…unfortunate acquaintances, was it?”