Chapter 12
What were you thinking?” Miss Celine snapped somewhere in the darkness. “You can’t just do whatever you like, Cillian. That’s not how this works and you know it!”
My eyes fluttered open from a dreamless sleep, my room drenched in early morning light. On the other side of the bedroom door Cillian mumbled a response I couldn’t quite make out, the edge of his blurred words sharp and pointed. I rubbed my face with a yawn. What were they arguing about so early?
I locked onto the leather jacket splayed across the corner chair.
Cillian’s jacket. Oh God. Last night, we’d talked for hours, mostly about silly things, like how I’d sucked at anything sports related and how art had always called to me.
We discussed our favorite meals, his being cheese, which led to a heated debate on whether that was truly considered a meal, and we must have fallen asleep at some point.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. While there was no outright rule against students hooking up—which I assumed Miss Celine thought was the case based on appearances—I highly doubted relationships between TAs and their students were a thing Saint Peter’s smiled upon.
Shit … I slipped from bed, ready and willing to beg on my hands and knees for forgiveness if it came to that, but upon reaching the door my feet were glued to the floor.
“She’s not ready for this,” Celine whispered. “You’re going to push her over the edge.”
“I’m telling you, she’s different this time,” Cillian said, sure and even.
Different this time? What was that supposed to mean? I pressed my ear to the door.
Celine sighed. “I understand your excitement. I can’t imagine how it must feel to connect with her so quickly, but—”
“This is more than excitement, Celine. Things are progressing faster than we realized, and I’ll be damned if I let them have her,” he hissed. “She’s … she’s found it already.”
“What? But how? It’s too soon, she’s not ready—”
The door groaned under my weight, stopping their conversation in its tracks. Oh, for the love of God … Before I had the chance to flee back to my bed and feign sleep, the door flew open to reveal a very stern, very intimidating version of the otherwise kind art director I’d come to know.
She crossed her arms over her chest, foot tapping. “Good, you are awake. Collect yourself and meet me in the dining room in ten minutes. Do not make me wait.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
With that, she turned on her heel, shoulders poised, and flitted off down the hall. I combed the scene for Cillian, but he was gone. Looked like I’d be facing the consequences alone.
I threw myself together in record time. No makeup, hair tossed up into a bun, and an outfit chosen at random from the bottom of my duffle bag: jeans and a black hoodie.
Cillian’s words repeated through my mind with every step down the grand staircase, the déjà vu on my tongue tainted by the iron spilling from my bitten cheek.
She’s different.
What did that even mean? I made up my mind to drill Cillian the first chance I got.
But for now, I simply had to manage to get my feet to cross the threshold and set myself down beside the fuming redhead alone at the dining room’s backmost table.
Face stern, hands folded over her empty plate, she waited.
I trembled, my chest burning as I weighed my options.
I could run, ditch this place and head off into the sunset before she even had the chance to kick me out.
It’d be days before Jack figured it out, giving me the chance to disappear before he caught my trail.
But he’d find me … he always did. I could hide, but for how long really?
A more terrifying third option came to the forefront.
Or I could put on a brave face and handle this.
When my feet began to move, I nearly yelped.
I hadn’t told them to move, and yet there I was, taking reluctant steps straight toward Miss Celine like I’d discovered some newfound confidence buried inside my brain that’d lain dormant until now.
Breathe. She’s just concerned. Explain and she’ll understand.
She had to. I paused on the other side of the table with a strained smile. “Good morning,” I muttered.
She raised an eyebrow. “Good? You’d really say it was a good morning, Fey?”
My mouth turned to sand, any response I might have had fluttering away. Blood rushed, spreading across my chest and up my neck, pulsing in my ears. “Well, maybe not a good morning …”
“You deliberately disobeyed the institute’s one hard and fast rule: students and faculty are never to engage in …
extracurricular activities. You are lucky Cillian is not a paid member of our staff, which would have ended in immediate termination from the program, though unfair favoritism in regards to test scores and the like still gives me pause.
” She crossed her arms. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
I searched for a rational explanation, but I couldn’t exactly come out and say Well, I got burned to a crisp in a nightmare last night and this freaky looking stone fell out of a dream, so I ran and Cillian found me and—no.
Instead, I collected myself, focused on the grounding energy the hardwood floor under my feet lent me and stated the easier truth.
“I have no excuse. I—I should have asked him to leave before we fell asleep. I’m sorry.
I promise you nothing happened. We talked, that’s all. ”
I coughed against the lump in my throat.
She eyed me for what felt like an eternity without a response, her arms crossed tight over her gray blazer.
Jack’s threat clattered through me like a gong: You flunk out and you come home, and I will decide where you go from there.
The warmth in my ears spread into my eyelids before I could stop it, and tears careened down my cheeks, hot and fast. “Please, I was stupid and selfish, but … don’t make me leave.
You don’t understand how much hinges on my success here.
I’ll do better, I promise, just give me another chance—”
A sob tore through me, my shoulders sinking as I attempted to regain my breath, but the panic attack I’d managed to curb the night before refused to be assuaged a second time.
I fell to my knees, curling around myself in a tight ball.
You failed! Again! My lungs heaved, too shrunken for a full dose of oxygen, and my head began to spin violently.
Can’t you do anything right? The room blurred past as bricks dropped into my stomach one by one.
I tried, I truly tried to calm myself, silence it all, but somewhere in the past month a hard reality had tangled itself deep inside me that I hadn’t realized until that exact moment.
Saint Peter’s had become something I’d never planned it to be: safe.
Maybe even … home. I couldn’t lose that again.
A gentle hand pressed between my shoulder blades, the panic in me ceasing on contact.
“Fey, take a deep breath for me. I am not expelling you; do you hear me? That is not the conversation we are having here. In fact, I don’t even plan to bring this issue to the board.
All I meant to do was to remind you to think before you act. ”
Something I could feel: the hand on my back. Something I could see: the shiny floorboards. Something I could smell: Miss Celine’s lavender perfume. Finally, my breath evened out. “You … you aren’t going to make me leave?”
“Oh, you sweet girl.” She pulled me to my feet, wrapping her arms tight around me. “No, you are not being kicked out.”
The way she said it, the pure sincerity in her tone, reminded me of Mary. The connection smoothed the last of my nerves, the panic replaced by swift embarrassment. “I’m, uh … I’m sorry about that. Sometimes I just lose control.”
“Please, do not apologize. We all fight silent battles that, on occasion, become too much pressure to keep in safely. Our bodies know it, that’s why they break the levee to release pent-up energy from time to time.
Feeling your feelings is not a bad thing, it’s human.
You’re safe with me, Fey.” A warm smile brimmed across her face. “Now, how about some breakfast, hmm?”
My heart swelled. “I’d like that.”
I took my seat and watched as Celine removed the silver lid from a platter in the center of the table to reveal a massive stack of pancakes—burnt pancakes.
“I tried the method you showed me,” she said timidly. “Needless to say, it wasn’t as successful as yours. I actually came by your room earlier to ask for help, but well, here we are. Consider this your punishment for earlier: burnt hotcakes for breakfast.”
“They aren’t so bad. Just a little dark around the edges.”
“You’d be wise to hold your critique until you’ve had a taste.” She winked and dished up my plate.
A laugh shook my shoulders as I took stock of how odd it was being in her presence, of how I went from frazzled to comfortable so quickly.
Few things pulled me out of an active panic attack, and yet a single touch from her had stopped my snowballing thoughts in their tracks.
She radiated an almost ethereal peace, her air of calm like a warm hug I didn’t know I needed or … wanted.
Don’t let her get too close. Be fair to her.
I bit into the hardened dough—raw in the middle, charred on the outside—and forced myself to swallow. Honestly, it might be the worst pancake I’d ever tasted, but Celine beamed with anticipation at my side. I forced a smile, gagging the remainder down. “Really good.”
Her eyes narrowed playfully. “Must we have a chat about lying now too?”
I mean, it could have been worse? I wasn’t sure how, but … A shiver ran through me as I reached for the bowl of haphazardly cut fruit instead, filling my plate. It wasn’t possible to ruin fruit … was it?
“I have something I would like to show you today,” Celine said, moving her food around on her plate without daring a bite.
“You do?”
“Yes. I had hoped to show you yesterday, but couldn’t seem to find you.”
Tangy pineapple slushed in my mouth, washing the remnants of burnt sludge off my taste buds. “Sorry, I was drawing in the garden.”
“Sorry? Why would you be sorry about that?” Her gaze settled on me.
I realized then I wasn’t sure. I’d been so used to apologizing for every little thing in Jack and Glenda’s home, it’d become a knee jerk reaction.
I’m not sure how I hadn’t noticed how ridiculous that was before: the tendency to apologize for things that didn’t require one.
What would I have done instead? Waited around, pausing my day to make myself available in case Celine wanted to show me something I’d known nothing about?
“How was it?” she asked. “Drawing in the garden?”
“Good. Rudy really knows how to tend to the roses. They’re beautiful.”
“That he does. I often read out there myself. Something about the river’s song calms me so.”
The conversation carried on effortlessly from there, my attention falling at Celine’s side now and again where Cillian should have been, his plate empty, taunting me.
When dishes had found their way into the sink and the table had been wiped down, Celine motioned for me to follow.
We wound through the cinema room, passed the library, and paused at an arched door tucked below the grand staircase I hadn’t noticed before.
Celine rummaged in the pocket of her expertly ironed slacks, and I turned about to face the hall behind us.
The uneasy feeling of being watched came over me all at once.
My gaze drifted upward to a stained-glass panel set between wooden spires atop the hall.
Despite the lack of windows nearby, its honey glass glinted.
It looked like … like an eye, the same one I’d seen on Cillian’s leg.
Watching. Surveying the halls. My vision tunneled as a shadow flitted down the far side of the hall.
I gasped, every hair on my body standing on end.
“Fey?” Celine asked, pulling me back into the moment. “Everything okay?”
I searched the hall, heartbeat pounding in my ears. But … nothing. There was nothing there. “I … yeah, I’m fine. I just thought I saw someone.”
“Perhaps Cillian is wandering about as we are.”
“Right …” I fought the alarm screaming in my head that a human couldn’t possibly move that quick, eager to get the hell away from the eye in the hall.
Celine followed my stare straight toward the eye, and I heaved a heavy breath.
No more glow. No more glaring pupil. Just regular old glass, and once again my mind played tricks on me.
“This way,” Celine said, pushing an ornate skeleton key into the lock.
The door squealed shut behind us as we stepped into a hall curving to the right.
The entrance was shrouded in darkness thanks to the lack of windows and doors along its edges, but light lingered somewhere in the distance.
Halfway down the corridor, the wooden walls gave way to red brick, and oil lamps drenched the space in amber light.
“What is this place?” I asked, footsteps echoing down the hall.
The light caught her eyes. “A sacred space: my sanctuary.”
One final turn, and we found ourselves before a pair of doors unlike any I’d ever see.
My breath caught. Milky white stone with fractured veins of grey made up the left-hand door, beams of light and winged creatures carved deep into its surface.
Incredible. I stepped closer, brushed my fingertips over the cool surface, and studied the strange beings within: talons, sharp features, and eyes so deep they turned to shadow.
The stone itself I’d seen before, but couldn’t put my finger on its name.
Sodalite maybe? No, that wasn’t right. Selenite?
“Howlite,” Celine interjected, reading my mind.
The right door proved far different than the first. Black as night, it featured creatures much different than the first. Creatures that were uncomfortably reminiscent of the beast in my nightmares.
In vicious caricatures, they brawled with one another, their teeth bared.
A snarl in the distance made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I swung around to survey the hall. Nothing …
Celine rested a hand on my shoulder, and my panic melted away.
A trick of the brain, that’s all.
She pushed the solid stone doors open as if they were little more than curtains. “Fey, Welcome to Fhírinne.”