Chapter Sixteen
Chapter
Sixteen
My cheeks feel raw as the wind lashes against them.
A thick fog has replaced the rain, diluting the burnt colours of autumn.
I walk down to the campus village. Despite now having human students, only a handful of places are open during the day, like the coffee shop Stephan and I walked by on our first day.
I get a flat white to go, hoping a warm drink will calm my temper before I call her.
But when I hear her voice, my anger at her betrayal flares through my nerves. “You’re up early, aren’t you?” Penny asks.
“Are you working with Faust Nocth?”
My eyes sting. I put my tongue between my teeth to stop myself from gritting them and stare out at the Raven River, meandering across flat rocks, riddled with moss. The fog is even thicker across the river, hiding the woods.
Penny hasn’t said anything yet.
I want to scream at her. But if I want the truth, I have to stay calm. She’s not working with a vampire. She wouldn’t.
“What did he tell you?” she asks. I dig my nails into my palms.
“That you were here, eight years ago.”
“What else?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. She hasn’t denied it yet. “Why am I here?”
“You already know why.”
“Faust Nocth told me that whatever mission you gave me is just a cover. You probably don’t even need The Book of Blood and Roses, do you?”
“I do, Rebecca. Regardless of what he tells you—”
“Have you explored the tunnels? Do you know where the library is?”
“You wouldn’t be there if I knew,” Penny says, her voice just as sharp as my own.
“Really?” I nearly spill my coffee. “Because the dean implied otherwise. Apparently, I’m going to be useful, did he tell you that, too?”
“Watch your tone,” Penny says, and I bite back my fear. I’ve done everything she’s asked me to. Always.
“Does Callisto know about this?” Are you a mole?
“No,” she finally admits. I squeeze the coffee cup, curtailing my temper. “But Faust is useful. I didn’t tell you because I was hoping you wouldn’t interact. Why exactly—”
“And the fact that you were here?” I interrupt her. “You never thought it would be helpful to tell me that in advance?”
“You were given the information you needed.” Her cold voice tells me to drop the subject. But I can’t.
“Was I, really? You told me fuck all, Penny. Which other vampires do you work with?”
“Only him.” Her voice softens, and I want to believe her. “Like I said, Faust is useful, that’s all. He’ll sometimes tip me off on certain vampires or events. But I’m the only hunter he trusts.”
“And do you trust him?” A seagull lands on one of the flat rocks of the river, cocking its head as it stares at me.
“Of course not. And neither should you. Try to stay away from him.”
“That would have been a lot easier if you’d told me from the start,” I say, but my temper has begun to simmer down. At least she admitted it. Though I’m pretty certain she’s still hiding something.
As am I.
I walk into Gustavsson’s class, feeling my pulse against my ears. I look straight at him and wait for him to look back. I wait for his eyes to give it away, that Nocth told him what I am. But he’s busy fighting with his record player, cursing at it while another student offers to help.
According to the dean, Gustavsson dealt with the Red Ribbons, but I can’t visualise the scrawny vampire dealing with anyone. The stark shadows of the crypt-like classroom only make his features look gaunter. When he finally casts his gaze in my direction, it doesn’t linger.
I try to pay attention to his lecture. But I can’t stop thinking about Penny. I play our conversation over and over, trying as hard as I can to believe her.
Callisto—Penny—has been the only constant in my life these past four years. Maybe she’s right. Getting information from someone as powerful as Faust Nocth must have its advantages. But he’s an Astra. She said it herself, they’re dangerous. Not ordinary vampires.
Whether Penny is telling the truth or not about my mission to find the book, I have no choice but to continue. And since I can’t focus on the lecture, I scribble away in my notebook, trying to make sense of the map of tunnels. There’s still so much missing.
“Cassie,” Ife whispers beside me once the lecture ends.
“Yes?”
When I look up, students are already making their way out of the music hall. And at the door, a mop of white hair. “Your roommate is here,” she says, shooting me an inquisitive glance.
I walk out and find Aliz slipping into a narrow stairwell. I follow and find her leaning on the wall, directly beneath a lamp. The staircase is made of steep slabs of granite, vanishing into the dark.
“I didn’t know if you’d follow me,” she says, as I step down the first two steps, into the dark and cold nook. She seems uncharacteristically awkward, and I remember her expression last night. I lean on the wall opposite hers, staying as far as the narrow staircase allows.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you last night,” I say, my voice painfully self-conscious.
Aliz stares at me, wide-eyed. And then, to my absolute horror, she smiles. A genuine, honest smile, the kind she’s not shared with me before. Warmth spreads through my chest, breath momentarily caught in my throat. “So we are friends, then,” she says, and I blink, getting my senses back in order.
“Of course not. But I was rude.” I tug my scarf a little tighter, ignoring the itch. “Why are you here?”
Aliz glances out of the staircase, towards the tunnel outside the music hall. Professor Gustavsson is the last to leave, and when I peek out, he offers me a small wave before heading on his way, cello case almost as wide as his shoulders.
“I won’t let you become my Familiar,” she finally says, keeping her voice low. “We’re going to find The Book of Blood and Roses before the full moon. I promise.”
That warmth I tried to push from my chest is there again. I nod, trying to not let emotion show on my face.
“And what if I ask you to—”
“I won’t bite you,” she says before I can finish. “What happened in the bathroom was a mistake. I got carried away.”
“I did, too,” I say.
Aliz clears her throat. “All right, then,” she says, stepping forward, offering me her hand. “Let’s get to work.”
Aliz promised we’d find the library, but during our first trip to the tunnels, I already feel like tearing my hair out. “It’s this way,” she argues, pointing at a narrow hallway we walked down barely ten minutes ago.
I snap my black notebook open, the web of tunnels a little hard to make out. I shove it in her face, keeping one finger pressed over the tunnel she wants us to take. “It leads to a class. We were in that class.”
“When did you get the time to draw all this?” she says, flicking through the pages. “It’s a mess.”
“Before class,” I say, snatching it back.
“And if it’s such a mess, we should work separately.
” Before she can protest, I add: “We’ll cover more ground that way, won’t we?
” I’m used to working alone. And plus, if I’m not walking down narrow hallways with her, I won’t feel the urge to grab her hand, either.
Monday arrives, my seventh night with the Familiar’s mark, and the different halls and cafés of Tynahine all seem to be hosting a party of some kind.
The only quiet place, aside from my room, is Tynarrich’s dining hall.
My neck itches incessantly, and I dig my nails into it over the red scarf, swallowing breath after breath.
My stomach burns, and the Scotch pie in front of me seems terribly unappetizing, the mutton filling taking on a greyish hue as it spills over the porcelain plate. I’ve been able to keep it together so far. But beneath the surface, cracks are forming.
Julia walks into the dining hall, pulling me out of my stupor.
Her long hair is tied up in a messy bun.
There’s a gauntness to her, the residue of death.
I try to picture her when she was eighteen and human, just like me, with full cheeks and maybe her almost-white hair a shade darker.
I do know that some Converts take after their sires.
“You’ve been busy,” she says, sinking into an armchair at the other side of the fireplace. Flickering candles cover the mantelpiece, their wax creating a film over the scratched-up mahogany. As always, she has a sketch pad under her arm and wastes no time in opening it.
“Busier than I expected,” I say. I’m unable to add humor to my voice.
I want to see Aliz. This thought slips into my mind as if it belongs to someone else.
And in a way, it does. It’s the mark, twisting me, telling me this time in the company of another vampire is time poorly spent.
“How’s the…” I gesture at her sketch pad, unsure what exactly Julia does in class.
She smells like paint and turpentine, but all I can see right now is paper and two pencils. “Art?”
She lets out a short laugh, a breath caught at the back of her throat.
“I’m working on a set of murals,” she says.
“Scenes of Adolescence. I can show you it once it’s done, if you ever feel like visiting Traquair Hall.
These are just to keep my hands busy.” She opens the sketchbook at a random page, revealing a crowded train cabin.
“The Tube,” she says, running her fingers across the shadowy silhouettes. “Last thing I saw with human eyes.”
I stare down at the drawing. The windows of the train are completely black.
Some parts of the cabin are drawn and shaded with near photo-realism.
Others are completely abstract, as though the paper itself is glitching.
Just as I’m about to ask her about that fateful day, and what made her decide to leave her humanity behind, Julia tenses, looking across the hall.
I follow her gaze and see Aliz’s friend. The strange vampire I saw a few weeks back, with cuts on her hands. That encounter feels like months ago already.