“You’re an artist?”
“Y-yes.”
His thick eyebrows furrowed as he snagged Cath’s paper. When he shoved it in Eliana’s face, she was bombarded with an assortment of colors that didn’t amount to anything coherent. “Are you better than this?”
She swallowed, knowing he could uncover the truth simply by snatching her own papers. “Yes,” she confirmed, avoiding Cath’s eyes by fixing her focus on Nero’s.
He slapped the girl’s paper back on the table and crossed his arms. “All right, Little Mensen. If you’re so good, I want you to draw a portrait of me—one worthy of being plastered around Periculand. I know I already look like a god, but feel free to exaggerate a bit. I want everyone to know I rule this place.”
“A-a portrait?”
“Yeah,” he said, almost self-consciously—as if he knew she thought the idea was ridiculous and now second-guessed himself. Unfortunately, his mind was too heavily guarded to validate this theory. “If you make me a portrait, I won’t demolish this…beast,” he added with a condescending sniff in Cath’s direction. The dread in her moss-green eyes confirmed she had no interest in brawling with Nero, even if she had a decent chance of winning.
“Okay,” Eliana finally said. “I’ll draw…you.”
“Good,” Nero grunted with a hint of relief. “You have until my birthday, Mensen.”
Eliana’s eyes darted around awkwardly. “When’s your birthday?”
Not knowing the date was apparently the most inconceivable notion, because Nero rolled his eyes dramatically. “One week from today, primie. I want to wake up to the sight of my face pasted on every wall of this campus.”
“That’s, um…” His vicious stare quelled her sarcastic remark. “Okay, sure. One week.”
Nodding, Nero shot Cath a disgusted look before stomping off, his footsteps reverberating through the floor until he’d exited the library.
“I-I’m sorry,” Eliana stammered, shuffling beside Cath’s table. “I shouldn’t have said my art was better than yours, because…it’s not. Art is subjective. But…I knew that’s what he wanted to hear.”
Cath’s large lips smiled softly. “You saved me from him.”
“I, um—well, I don’t know about that…”
“Sit,” she commanded, motioning to the seat across from hers. Fumbling with her papers and pencils, Eliana plopped into the chair and dropped them on the table. As Cath surveyed her drawings of Zeela through her jagged green bangs, her face brightened with even more enthusiasm. “You are much better than me.”
Biting her lip, Eliana examined Cath’s pages, all strewn with bright colors etched with crayon. “What are you trying to draw?”
Redness seeped into her round cheeks. “You and your friends.” With a dense finger, she pointed to one of the blobs of a medium blue hue. “That one’s you, and that’s your girlfriend.” She then pointed to a pinkish figure: Kiki. With this information, Eliana saw the lines clearer, and it looked like she and Kiki were holding hands. “And that one’s your boyfriend.” Cath motioned toward a brown figure that also appeared to be holding Eliana’s hand.
As soon as the facts registered in her head, Eliana let out a genuine giggle. “Tray? I have—a girlfriend and a boyfriend?”
“And I’m convinced your boyfriend might also be dating this one.”
Eliana’s smirk remained when Cath indicated a mustard-yellow depiction linked with Tray’s. “Lavisa—and Tray? No, no…they don’t get along very well.”
“I know a lot of couples that don’t get along.” Cath shrugged her massive shoulders. “And a lot of people who can’t pick just one person to date. Romance is confusing.”
Eliana dipped her chin in agreement, still eyeing the drawing with faint amusement. “I’m…actually not dating anyone, though. I’m not sure…if I can let myself feel that way about someone again.”
Cath nodded in sympathy. “The twitchy kid said you dated the boy the Wackos sent me to retrieve—the one who died…”
“Twitchy kid?” Eliana asked, rather than elaborating on the subject of Hastings. Cath pointed to the orange figure on her paper. “Oh, Hartman. Well, yeah…he’s essentially right. We weren’t officially together, but…technicalities don’t make a difference. It hurt the same. I just wish…” Shaking her head to expel the thoughts, she refocused on the drawing. “Have you always liked to draw?”
Cath lifted the green crayon that matched her murky hair; it looked like a toothpick between her meaty fingers. “I never learned how to hold these—or those,” she said, nodding toward Eliana’s pencils. “My fingers have always been too big. But I’m trying to improve. I’m skilled with chaotic movements but not precise ones. I want to learn how to do more than just destroy.”
Her thoughts were so genuine and desperate that Eliana had to close her eyes. It sounded so much like Hastings. But her optimism—her hope that people could be redeemed—had died with Hastings. How could she assure Cath that she had potential when, in this bleak world, it seemed so unlikely that she’d reach it?
“Everyone called you ‘the monster’ when you first came here,” Eliana started slowly, “but you’re not a monster. You have one of the sweetest minds I’ve ever encountered. I really admire you for your effort.”
Cath’s blush was even more profuse than it had been earlier. Before she could voice her gratitude, though, a person popped up beside their table with crossed arms and raised eyebrows.
“Here you are.” Kiki glared down at Eliana with cotton candy eyes. “I’ve been looking all over for you. We—” Her voice came to an abrupt halt when her eyes locked onto the drawing sprawled on the table—not Cath’s, but Eliana’s. “I know that.”
Eliana blinked and then glanced between her roommate and her depiction of Zeela. “Um…what?”
Kiki ignored her, grabbing the paper. “I’ve seen this before, but I didn’t remember seeing it until I saw this just now.”
“You saw this?” Eliana repeated, standing to peer over the image with her. “As…as in…the future?”
“I-I don’t know.” Tossing the paper back onto the table, she hugged her torso and peeked over at Eliana with uncertainty. “Now I can’t stop thinking about it. How did you know to draw that?”
“I…don’t know,” Eliana echoed as uneasiness crept through her. “I’ve been drawing it for days. Maybe…maybe I’ve been reading your mind while we’re both…asleep—like I must have on the night Ruse appeared at our door as Hastings.”
Kiki’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me…you’ve been stealing my dreams for a month?”
“Unintentionally,” Eliana said with a wince.
Her roommate’s nostrils flared, but she didn’t voice her disgruntlement. “We’ll figure this out later. Right now, we have work to do. Calder, whose attractiveness Adara ruined for me with the fact that he’s actually into her, wants us to go dig up dirt about Than, who, even if he is a Wacko, is still the hottest three-hundred-year-old I’ve ever encountered.”
“Calder…told you he wants us to investigate Than?”
“No, but he’s about to—probably in a few seconds.”
Eliana’s brow wrinkled, but then she sensed Calder’s consciousness slip into the library. As Kiki had predicted, he stalked toward them a few seconds later. “Nero sent me here to tell you he wants a ‘manly crown’ on his head in his portrait,” he said to Eliana by way of greeting. His expression was dry and partially exasperated as he added, “Do I even want to know what that means?”
“I want to know what that means,” Kiki demanded, arching her eyebrows at Eliana.
“I—never mind.” Her gaze flashed briefly toward Cath. “Is there any other reason you’re here?” she asked Calder, who was now bored enough to play with an orb of water he’d conjured from his hand.
“Keep up the sass, Mensen, and you won’t live to hear the answer to that question.” With a smug little grin, he flicked a few droplets of water at her face. “I think Belven here alre
ady knows I’m only talking to you because I want you both to sneak into Than’s office and figure out if he’s a Wacko.”
“I do know,” Kiki snapped, her chin held high, “but you weren’t nearly this rude in my vision.”
“Your brain just can’t conceive how charming I am,” he mused, lips stretching wider. As his gaze landed back on Eliana, he sobered from his egotistic high. “We need to determine if Than’s a Wacko. I’ve been trying to find Periculy’s folder in the Reggs’ office whenever I’m up there, but they’ve hidden it well. If we can find some evidence on Than, then at least we know one of our enemies. Of all the primies, you seem the most capable of discovering that evidence.”
Kiki flipped her pinkish-blonde hair over her shoulder. “You don’t need to tell me I’m amazing.”
“I wasn’t. I was talking to Mensen.” A pout immediately consumed Kiki’s face, but Eliana couldn’t suppress a smirk. “Let me know if you find anything—discreetly,” Calder stressed with a pointed look in Kiki’s direction. “I’m convinced my roommate knows all the answers to our questions, but he won’t talk, and I doubt you can read his mind. Any luck with the librarian? She must know something, since she was banging Angor.”
Eliana’s eyes cut to the right, where the librarian sat behind the front desk. She’d never been much of a talker, but she’d been even more subdued over the past few weeks since Angor’s incarceration. Unfortunately, the former principal seemed to have trained her in the art of blocking mind readers, because most of her thoughts were shielded, and the few Eliana extracted were as foggy or blank as anyone who’d harbored information on Angor’s Affinity.
“No, nothing from her,” she said. “Her mind seems as wiped as the rest… Artemis must be exhausted from altering all of them.”
“That’s the problem,” Calder grumbled. “She’s been acting fine—maybe even more animated than before. Maybe using her Affinity gives her strength, rather than draining her.”
“That would make her even more dangerous…”
“As Stromer so politely suggested”—Calder’s languid eyes flickered toward Kiki—“I asked Aethelred to get…creative with her. He obviously refused—not just to get sexy with a married woman but to even accidentally touch Artemis at all. So, we still know nothing for certain.”
Kiki threw her head back and groaned. “Can’t you just drown the truth out of her or something? All of the training is making me sore, and I think I’m starting to gain muscles. I don’t want muscles! Soon I’m going to look like stupid Lavisa!”
Calder eyed her drolly. “I don’t think you have to worry about looking like Lavisa. And I don’t think it’ll be possible for Artemis to admit she’s a mind controlling murderer if I’m drowning her. Even if it were, I don’t want to land in jail if we’re wrong about this. Just see what you can gather about Than. And you”—he looked past Eliana at Cath for the first time—“tell anyone you heard any of this, and I’ll fill your lungs with water.”
Cath glanced up from her newest illustration, drawn with a dark blue crayon. Judging by her flustered thoughts, she hadn’t paid attention to any part of their conversation. “Here,” she grunted, handing her artwork to Calder without meeting his gaze.
Yanking it from her grasp, he scrutinized it for a long minute and then said, “Thanks. I think I’m gonna go hang this on the ceiling above Stromer’s metal slab, so she has to stare at me all day.” With a nod of appreciation at Cath, he spun on his heel and sauntered out of the library, admiring the drawing the whole way.
“You impressed Calder. That’s…impressive,” Eliana remarked, mildly nonplussed. Cath beamed with such mirth that she couldn’t stop her lips from curving as well. “Kiki and I have to go… Will you look after my drawings for me?”
“Of course.” Cath gathered Eliana’s papers behind the walls of her hefty arms. “I will guard them with my life.”
She might have laughed if she hadn’t known the girl was completely serious. With a nod of gratitude, she strolled away, sifting through every mind in the vicinity as Kiki scurried after her. “I don’t sense Than in the building.”
“Then let’s go.” Kiki seized Eliana’s hand to drag her toward the stairwell, and the sensation of physical contact instantly made her want to pull away.
Other than during drills in training, the last person she’d actually touched had been Hastings. Feeling Kiki’s hand in hers now dredged up memories of her and Hastings sharing intimate moments, but it didn’t hollow her like recollections of him normally did. Kiki was so wildly different from Hastings that, as they ascended the stairs of the Mentals Building, Eliana began to welcome the touch of someone who didn’t remind her of him—so much that, when they reached the second floor corridor and Kiki dropped her hand, Eliana wished she hadn’t.
The door to Than’s office was surprisingly unlocked, and Eliana wondered if Calder had something to do with it. If he’d taken the time to unlock Than’s door, though, why wouldn’t he have snooped around himself? He probably thought himself too important to waste time with such tedious tasks, Eliana concluded as she and Kiki snuck through the doorway.
Like Fraco’s office, Than’s consisted of a desk positioned before the glass wall at the back of the room and filing cabinets—though far less than the vice principal had. Most of the space was occupied by souvenirs from the various countries he’d visited over his nearly three hundred years of life, and three whole bookshelves of history volumes lined the left wall, at which Kiki rolled her eyes.
“Don’t tell me we need to look through all of those for evidence.”
Eliana pressed her lips together as she glanced between the bookshelves and the filing cabinets on either side of the room. “I’ll search the books for any hidden clues if you want to check the cabinets?”
“That sounds even more boring,” Kiki moaned as she trudged over to the shelves and yanked one of the books out. Eliana fought not to chuckle when its weight nearly pulled Kiki to her knees. “This is such a waste of paper! Anyone who reads clearly doesn’t care about the environment.” Slamming the book down on Than’s desk, she scowled at it as if it had attacked her.
Eliana extracted an even thicker volume and set it on the floor. “You really don’t like to read…at all?”
“Well, I did read a book once,” she admitted with a coy smirk.
Crouched on the ground, Eliana began flipping through the book to distract herself from Kiki’s mischievous expression. “Did you like it?”
“It was pretty smutty, so yeah. Don’t tell Adara, or she’ll start calling me Nerd-Bitch or something weird like that… I think I like your art better than books, anyway.”
Eliana hoped the lighting was dim enough that her roommate couldn’t see the heat surfacing in her cheeks. “You…do?”
“Yeah.” Her tone was so casual that it barely sounded like a compliment. “Your drawing of your sister was so…lifelike—almost exactly the same as the dream I forgot I had.”
When Eliana peered over her shoulder, she found Kiki giving her a tight-lipped smile. “I…don’t try to steal your dreams,” she insisted, embarrassed. “I usually try not to read your mind at all. I don’t want to be…invasive.”
“Hm,” was the girl’s only response as she rifled through the book.
“Should we…talk about our…connection, or…what the dream of Zeela in the fire might mean?”
“It probably means your sister’s gonna die in a fire,” Kiki said with a careless wave. “I bet Stromer will be the one to cause it, too.”
“Did you see that?”
“No.” Her lips twitched as she peeked at Eliana from the corner of her eye. “I don’t see anything particularly important, since someone’s been stealing my dreams.”
The heat rising in Eliana now was too intense to be bashfulness. All of the frustration buried in her heart gradually inched upward, threatening to explode over the pettiest accusation. She wasn’t really angry with Kiki—she was angry that her Affinity was so useless; s
he was angry that her sister might be in danger and there was nothing she could do about it; and she was angry that Hastings was dead and that she didn’t even know who killed him.
“Maybe,” Eliana began quietly, “we shouldn’t be roommates anymore.”
The other girl’s face drooped for a moment before she defaulted to defensiveness. “Why?”
“So I stop accidentally stealing your dreams.”
“I don’t want to be Lavisa’s roommate—”
“I’ll be Lavisa’s roommate.”
“I want to be your roommate!” Kiki’s whole body had rotated toward Eliana by now, and she was almost seething. “You’re the only person in this town who understands me! You’re the only person who doesn’t look at me like I’m some prissy bitch or some pathetic child! You’re the only person who ever has—including Seth, including my sister, including my parents—” She cut herself short, running a hand through her curly locks as she glared up at the ceiling.
“It’s…been bothering me that I haven’t gotten many visions. I feel…worthless. But maybe this connection between us isn’t a bad thing. Maybe you can decipher my dreams better than I can. The details you put into that drawing…I didn’t notice them until they were on paper like that—Zeela’s short hair, I mean. I’d just assumed her hair was long, like it was when she left, but you must have interpreted my vision better than I did. So, maybe…if we work together, what seems like a curse could prove useful.”
The intelligence of her thought process was mildly dizzying to Eliana. She’d always known Kiki was smarter than she let on, but Eliana hadn’t considered the implications of what this connection could mean in terms of practicality. Separate, their Affinities had been fairly volatile, but perhaps together they could reach their full potentials.
“We…need to find a way to maximize this connection then,” Eliana decided, straightening to her feet. As she did, her vision caught the book Kiki had searched through—and she saw a note poking out of the pages. Stepping between her roommate and the desk, Eliana yanked out the letter and unfolded it.
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