Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Enclave Memo (internal)
There’s a rumor about vampires spreading outside Boulder. It should be monitored and squashed if necessary.
CIPRIAN
“You brought me a textbook?”
“Yep.” I toss the chunky hardback at Alistair, throwing in a cheerful smile for good measure.
“It looks like it’s never been opened.”
I yawn. “I wasn’t what you would describe as academically inclined.”
Alistair’s apartment is as bland as I remember.
Gray walls, grayer furniture, even the flecks of color in his granite countertops are—you guessed it—gray.
Except for one streak of . . . what is that?
I squint at a flash of color near the sink and scrape my thumbnail against it. Blood. I should have known.
Blood splatter in a vampire’s kitchen is more predictable than sun in the desert.
Alistair’s apartment may be boring, but it’s better than my car, which I spent the last twenty hours crammed inside while driving to get him the textbook he’s so unimpressed with.
Stuffed in a chest with my embarrassing collection of snapback hats, the textbook had been collecting dust since the academy and I decided it was mutually beneficial we part ways.
As Alistair thumbs through the pages, I study him as thoroughly as the counter. He’s twitchy today. Wired. The circles under his eyes are deep purple, and his cheekbones are sharper than normal, even in the gloom.
He looks like shit.
It could be his falling out with Celine, but my gut tells me it’s more than that.
I open my mouth to ask, then shut it with a snap. Alistair won’t answer my questions; he barely let me through the damn door. I’ll learn more by watching.
“There’s a lot of information in here.” He sounds surprised, and I roll my eyes.
“Duh. It’s a textbook. That’s kind of the whole point.”
“Is it accurate?”
“How would I know? I didn’t read the damn thing.”
Lips pursed, Alistair flips ahead in the book and clears his throat.
“Nightmare demons are considered one of the most powerful types of demonic beings. Known for their heightened senses and fear-based magic, most influence the subconscious by targeting the mind during sleep. However, some nightmare lineages produce stronger abilities, creating immersive illusions that alter the perception and reality of one or more alert individuals.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s not bad, honestly.”
“You’re not a normal nightmare.” Alistair spits the words like an accusation, his expression darkening.
I scoff. “Of course not.”
“They don’t list any weaknesses,” he says, turning to the next page, then back again. “The information is incomplete.”
“Again. Of course not. The academy gets most of its funding from—”
“Rich assholes,” Alistair interrupts.
I roll my eyes again. Alistair is doing fine for himself, but I’m not dumb enough to point that out.
“It’s not only the enclave pulling the strings,” I tell him.
“Witches founded Starfall, and the modern covens are so enmeshed with the school that walking onto campus feels like getting dunked in an ice bath.” I shudder, remembering the gross sensation of the academy’s built-in magical protections.
Dad was livid when I got expelled, but it was worth his anger to get out of there. I didn’t get a good night’s sleep the entire time I lived at Starfall. Part of it was the unsettling prickle of witch magic, and the rest—well, let’s just say it wasn’t a popular place to be a Casanell either.
Alistair isn’t paying attention to me anymore—he’s completely focused on the book. I sigh and consider rifling through his fridge for a snack.
I don’t know why he can’t read it after I leave. This is boring.
“I’m happy to answer any questions you might have,” I say, grimacing. I sound like a fucking customer service bot, overly eager to please and one angry customer interaction away from taking a bath with my toaster.
Alistair grunts.
I groan.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demands.
Please, what’s wrong with me? Has he looked in the mirror recently? Don’t bring it up. You’ll piss him off. I thrum my fingers against my thighs and say, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You’re fidgeting.”
I force myself to stop moving and rack my brain for a way to convince him to read the book after I leave.
“There’s a chapter on experimental magic,” I say.
I only know that because I skimmed the index before giving it to him to be sure nothing was too incriminating about the enclave families, but there’s no reason to tell him that.
The textbook is a good resource, but I’m not surprised it’s not common knowledge. If you left your home realm and moved here as an adult, as many in the Fringes do, you wouldn’t have an opportunity to go to school and learn it.
“Gods, the witch section is one-third of the book,” Alistair exclaims.
I snort and pretend to jerk myself off. “Yeah, they’re pretty high on themselves. A witch probably wrote the book.”
Alistair continues flipping through the pages. “I found the experimental magic section,” he murmurs, sitting up straighter on the barstool. “It says that, in rare instances, magic users can combine their gifts with other species to create new abilities.”
Whoa. That’s cool. Clearly, I wasn’t in the class the day that was covered. “Does it say how?” I ask.
Alistair shakes his head. “This book has no instructions of any kind.”
“I’m not surprised.” I shrug. “It’s an introductory textbook. It wasn’t assigned to a practical class.” My memories of the academy are foggy. It’s been a few years, and I spent more time seducing or pranking my classmates than learning.
There is one thing about it that strikes me as strange. “All the applied classes were divided by species, though,” I tell him. “I’m not sure they ever give anyone the opportunity to try.” Pushing to my feet, I flip my frown to a smile. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Alistair’s blue eyes leave the book to skim over my face. “I sincerely doubt it.”
“We should try to combine our magic! Cook up something new.”
“That’s not the point—”
“Yeah, but it’s more fun. Plus, you have hours to read and compile your files while the sun’s up.” I waggle my eyebrows as Alistair’s nostrils flare.
“Fine,” he mutters. “But only if we work on the dossier first.”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s do it.” I crack my knuckles and rock back on my heels. Alistair is too sexy to be a hopeless nerd. This shouldn’t take long at all.
I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life.
Alistair is the biggest nerd alive. His ability to focus for hours at a time is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. He’s barely moved, transferring information from the book to his laptop with fingers that move in a blur as they type.
He asks for my input occasionally, and I give it gladly. Desperately. Fuck, anything to alleviate the boredom. When I check my phone for the thirty-second time in half an hour, I can’t stifle my sigh.
“If you’re tired, we can attempt the magical combination some other time.”
I snap my head up, preparing to steal his laptop—damn the consequences—when I catch the smirk on his face. The tips of his fangs poke over his lower lip, and I shake my head and mutter, “Bastard.”
“I suppose I am,” he says.
My eyes flit to his face, and I prepare to apologize, but there’s no sign that I’ve offended him. There’s even some color in his pale cheeks, as if Alistair is energized by digging through a mountain of boring information. Yep, major nerd.
“I’m assuming you can compel people?” I ask.
He nods.
“But you don’t have any neighbors we could practice on?”
His answering glare is ferocious, and I grin.
“We need someone else then. Otherwise, we won’t be able to tell if it works. You know who’s the perfect test subject?”
“She doesn’t want to be around either of us,” Alistair snarls, scrubbing his hand over his face angrily.
“No. Not Celine. Gods, she would kick our asses for trying, and with the truth thing, she’d be too difficult to convince, anyway.” I let my smile stretch across my whole face. “We need Luca. He’s perfect.”
Alistair cocks his head and nods shortly. “I’ll see if he’s free.” He types a message on his phone, blue eyes studying me even as his fingers move across the screen. “You aren’t supposed to know about Celine’s magic.”
I raise one eyebrow. “You forget I lived in that tiny apartment with all three of you for days, and you blurted it at the Fang. I know about Celine’s magic and Luca’s, although his was harder to figure out.”
“He still pretends I don’t know about that,” Alistair says, giving me his full attention.
“And it should stay that way,” I say seriously. “With omni shifters around, the last thing we need is a bunch of people able to use his powers without the benefit of his lifetime of restraint.”
Gideon and his family are as ethical as they come, but they can’t resist adding new animals to their shifting options. All it would take is for one of them to see Luca in his shifted form and they’d be able to transform into a basilisk whenever they want.
Alistair’s phone buzzes, and he glances at it, his black eyebrows lifting high on his forehead. “Luca’s coming over.”
A rush of excitement hits me. I tell myself it has everything to do with the fact that we’re about to test something cool and nothing to do with Luca. Lying again.
Within ten minutes, he knocks on the door. It’s not a moment too soon.
Sullenly, Alistair stops arguing with me about the best way forward and retreats down the hall, away from the sun. I open the apartment door, pasting a cheerful grin on my face. “Welcome, lab rat.”
Luca shakes his head and shoulders past me, his body grazing mine.
I shut the door behind him, and Alistair reappears in a rush of stale air that smells faintly of copper, salt, and disinfectant.
“What’s this about?” Luca asks him. “Why did Casanell call me a lab rat?”
“You didn’t explain?” I laugh.