Chapter 5
Five
Elodie
Uncle Nik paces the small, nearly empty office. “Don’t you see? You have a gift. A gift that can remove the worst threats to this world—eliminate the people who’re setting us on a horrible course.”
My hands ball where they’re resting on my lap. I adjust my weight on the hard chair, but I can’t shake off my queasiness. “But… you’re talking about killing them. On purpose. Can’t someone just arrest them or—”
Nik spins toward me, his dark eyes searing with intensity. “No. They cover their tracks too well. They’d lash out at those of us standing for what’s right and do so much more damage.”
My fingers squeeze tighter, the nails biting into my palms. An image of Asher’s limp, bloody body flashes through my head. “I’m just a student, not an assassin or anything like that.”
And I don’t want to be, though it feels very hard to say that while the man who saved me from disgrace is looking at me with such determination.
“Maybe not,” he says, “but you can do something no one else I know can do. You can end a person’s life without leaving a shred of evidence behind.
Most of the time, it won’t even look like an attack but a sudden heart failure or similar.
You’ll be perfectly safe, and you’ll make this world so much safer for everyone else in it… ”
The ping of my phone jolts me out of the dream.
I stare at the gauzy canopy stretching between the bed posts, my pulse thundering in my ears. The enchanted duvet absorbs the sheen of sweat that broke out on my arms and wraps me in comforting coziness, but I can’t fully relax.
Nothing in this room is really mine. All this luxury belonged to a girl who’s dead, a girl who never destroyed anyone else’s life to protect her own.
It makes sense that I’d start dreaming about Uncle Nik again now that I’ve activated my glim, doesn’t it? My power and him were inexorably tangled together.
But as far as I know, he doesn’t exist in this reality. Or at least, he has no idea that I do. I don’t have to worry about him.
After a few steadying breaths, I roll onto my side and peer blearily at my phone where I left it on the bedside table. As the adrenaline fades, a fog of fatigue rolls through my head again.
I feel like I could use about ten more hours of sleep, but the sun is beaming gently beyond my window. A tap of the phone’s screen reveals that my alarm would have gone off in a few minutes anyway.
Restraining a groan, I sit up and scroll through the recent texts.
The group thread with Other Elodie’s four best buds is blowing up, several more messages chiming while I read over the ones I missed last night.
The Somerset twins—Mia and Madison—are gushing about a new coat designer they just discovered.
Cadance Hathaway makes dismissive remarks about how we won’t be able to wear most of the designs until next fall anyway.
Stella Kingsley pops in a few times with her usual classy reserve, complimenting the find but not too avidly.
What do you think, Elle? she wrote last night. And again, popping up just now, Seems like Elle must be getting lots of beauty sleep.
My fingers tighten around the phone. Is she trying to provoke me into answering?
They could be regular friendly comments… but Stella heard me talking about sneaking out last night. I told her it was only a ploy for the police investigation. She could have been testing to see if I’d answer last night to judge whether that was true.
An icy ribbon winds through my gut. We don’t really know anything about the “she” Kenneth referred to other than she persuaded him to go after me. He was a pretty mild-tempered guy… Any of my friends could have bullied him into it.
They were all sitting with me when I got poisoned. Other Elodie saw at least Stella the evening before her murder, during the Bloom special practicum.
I want to shrug off the unnerving prickles of suspicion, but they’ve already dug in as deep as a kamaitachi’s razor claws.
I can’t trust anyone around me, can I?
No one except my matches. And even with them, it’s hard to say exactly how far.
I set down the phone without replying. It’ll be more useful to see how my supposed friends react when they see me at school if I haven’t already confirmed I’m alive and well.
I drag myself out of bed, too groggy to force myself through my usual exercises and drifting through a very undisciplined meditation. By the time I’ve suited up in my academy uniform and downed a hearty but healthy chef-cooked breakfast, the haze in my head has started to clear.
My most immediate enemy is gone—nothing but scraps of stuffed dog floating out in the lake by now. I can handle whatever comes next.
I have to, or it’ll be my matches’ lives on the line as well as my own.
It feels strange pulling on my silk gloves, covering the mark emblazoned on my palm. I press my fingertips against it and head down to the waiting car.
Yesterday’s constant rain has left the air damp and the green muddy enough that most of the students are avoiding it in their fancy shoes.
I spot Stella, Cadance, and Mia standing in a semi-circle on the broad, granite-tiled front walk: light auburn braid, golden ringlets, and platinum pixie cut ducked close together.
In the hazy sunlight that filters through the thin layer of cloud, their pose strikes me as ominous. What are they gossiping about without me?
Walking over, I paste on a smile. If I seem weird, I can’t expect them to act normally no matter whether any of them is involved in my attempted murder.
Mia catches sight of me first, with a typical cheery grin and wave. I don’t know how she packs so much upbeat energy in her tiny frame, but there’s nothing suspicious about her reaction.
Cadance acknowledges me with a tip of her head and a bored expression, because presumably it would be uncool to act as if she’s more than slightly happy to see one of her besties.
And Stella…
Does her brow knit for a second before she offers me her usual gracious smile?
She turns toward me immediately. “Is everything okay? You didn’t say anything in the group text.”
Is she worried about me or wondering what I actually got up to last night?
I wave off her concern. “I just slept a lot—still recovering from the poison, I guess. Had to rush to get here in time and figured we’d talk now.”
Her gaze lingers on me as if evaluating my answer, but our conversation is interrupted by Madison arriving with a flip of her white-blond bob and a cup carrier holding four coffees.
“Oh,” she says when she sees me, with a bit of a grimace. “You didn’t say anything so I thought maybe you’d already gotten your own.” She hesitates. “You can have mine if—”
I hold up my hand. “No, it’s fine. I got my caffeine fix at home.”
She looked unsettled because of the coffee situation, but not that I’m here at all.
Of course, any of these women could just be putting on a solid performance.
Only a couple of months ago, Other Elodie and them pretended to make friends with one of our classmates just to get details on a designer purse sale.
As Madison passes around the drinks, we meander toward Thesan Hall. My gaze roves over our schoolmates, watching for any trace of surprise or hostility.
I’m surrounded by potential enemies. I guess that’s been true all along, but my awareness of it presses in on me more than it ever did before.
I never saw Kenneth coming. What else might I have missed?
Salvatore swaggers past us, earning a disdainful curl of Cadance’s lip. He only glances over for a second, but the glint in his eyes when they briefly meet mine leaves heat flowing over my skin.
With a pang through the thrum of our bond, I drag my attention away. I’m not supposed to be any more connected to him than I was yesterday.
We step into the main senior building with a rap of heels against the marble floor. Stella peers around us and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Did you hear? The Hearsts have been asking around to check if anyone saw Kenneth last night. It sounds like he’s gone AWOL.”
Does her gaze rest on me for a beat longer than anyone else, judging my reaction?
Mia frowns. “Where would a guy like that go? It’s not like he was into partying or anything crazy.”
Her twin makes a scoffing sound. “He probably fell asleep studying in the library or something dull like that. Bet you we see him by lunch.”
Stella shrugs. “His parents seem pretty concerned. I mean, they called my parents, and he’s never been at our house except for tagging along with them for dinner parties now and then.”
Did they check in with my dad too? What will Aunt Daphne make of Kenneth’s disappearance when she finds out it was the same night I snuck out?
I guess that’s Future Me’s problem.
My gaze snags on a tall form with dark curly hair ahead of us in the hall. Grady Tadros.
Daphne’s comment about his family’s connection to Kenneth’s knife runs through my head. He or his relatives could still be players in this murderous web.
But I no longer have access to the main place I could spy on him.
After I’ve been out of commission for a week thanks to the poisoning, there’s no way The Eclipse’s higher-ups haven’t realized Chuck, the attendant I was impersonating, has abandoned his job.
I can’t show up at the exclusive men-only lucent club as myself.
I have to leave that avenue of inquiry to Byron.
As we file into the Defensive Magic classroom, I’m immediately aware of the man in question just settling into a seat on the other side of the room. Byron’s presence quivers through my nerves from my bond mark without me even looking at him directly, tugging me toward him.
Sorry, bond. It’s not cuddle time.
I keep my eyes averted and sit down with my friends. But while I paw through my satchel for my class supplies, I weave a little spell through the ephemera around us.
A faint message will ripple across the notebook Byron has open in front of him. Library, Community Section, after school. -E
He lifts his gaze slowly to glance my way. I incline my head in a subtle nod and release the magic so the conjured letters will disappear.
I’m just straightening up when Professor Jovak ambles in.
I’ve always thought our Defensive Magic professor looks like exactly the sort of person who’d most need defensive skills—he couldn’t be less threatening.
Cadance joked during an earlier class that he could be an overgrown garden gnome, and she isn’t wrong.
He stands at best an even five feet, with a short white beard protruding beneath his round, ruddy cheeks.
A bit of a pot belly fills out his bright red shirt.
And right now, his sweeping gaze jars to a halt on me.
His broad smile twitches and freezes in place. Just for a second, he looks more like a rabbit in headlights than a gnome.
My pulse skips a beat, and the moment passes.
Professor Jovak lets out a laugh that sounds genuinely pleased.
“Miss Devine, I hadn’t realized you were already back with us after last week’s awful incident.
I’m glad to see your recovery has been so smooth.
We have something in the works that may help reassure you for the rest of your time at Luminary. ”
He sets the book he was carrying on his desk and rubs his hands together. “All right, class. Ready to dig into defense?”
Chuckles and a few groans carry through the room. My heart eases into a gentler rhythm, but my stance stays stiff.
It is the first Defensive Magic class I’ve attended since my poisoning in the cafeteria. I can imagine the sight of me might have startled the professor with an unpleasant reminder of the crime.
But what does he mean about ‘something in the works’? And who is this ‘we’?