by Eva Chase
Not too many people were hanging around on the green between classes in the cold mid-morning air. I thought I managed to work the magic without being noticed. Still, I felt vaguely ridiculous as I slipped beneath the illusion and grasped the rope.
I was doing this for Connar. He needed us—needed me—to do whatever we could to free him from the spell that was clutching his mind. If I had to pull a few stunts to accomplish that, who was I to complain? At least I wasn’t the one who’d been brainwashed.
As I hauled myself upward, the burn in my muscles made me grateful for the chilly breeze. I planted my feet one after the other, setting them as quietly as I could, the rope digging in my palms. A bird called out as it swooped toward the forest. More voices carried up from below as students started to leave the building after the earlier classes. I pushed myself faster. I’d hoped to be in place before Connar’s class came in.
My shoulders and calves ached by the time I reached the ledge I’d created for myself. I settled my feet there, still clutching the rope for balance, and eased up to peer through the window pane.
For this part, I was counting on Jude’s magic as well as my own. Last night, after a lot of snarky commentary about the duplicity of the barons that I’d discovered, we’d hashed out this plan. Jude had popped into the classroom before any of the seminars started and created an illusion that would replicate the view anyone would expect to see when looking out. It was more detailed work than I could imagine carrying out, but he’d seemed confident he could pull it off. As long as no one had opened the window, his spell shouldn’t have been disturbed.
I held my breath as I looked into the classroom. The teacher, Professor Sinleigh, was standing behind her desk, gazing right toward the window. My pulse stuttered before I realized that she hadn’t reacted to my presence at all. She just kept up her reverie for a few seconds longer and then turned back to the pages of notes in front of her.
She hadn’t seen me at all. Jude’s illusion was holding.
I slid my elbow onto the rough stone of the window ledge to help my balance and tried to relax into my awkward pose. With luck, I wouldn’t need to stay here too long. It’d better not take them the whole class to get around to actually casting any insight spells of their own.
Students started trickling in and taking their seats with nods to the professor. I was just starting to tense up again with the fear that I’d gotten this all wrong when Connar finally joined them. He sat at the back of the room like he had in Persuasion, but at the far end from the wall with the window, so I had a decent view of him when I shifted to peer past his classmates.
He looked… sad. That was the only way I could put it. There, surrounded by peers he couldn’t really call friends, without any of us scions provoking him into anger, a haunted sort of distance came into his eyes. The set of his mouth softened, the corners curled down. Somewhere under his mother’s influence, he was suffering. Seeing it wrenched at my heart.
I braced myself, my gaze flicking between the professor and the three rows of students, watching for a sign that they were getting into their spellwork. Professor Sinleigh talked for a while, her lips moving but her voice not loud enough to penetrate the glass. My legs started to stiffen from holding me in place. The students nodded and a couple raised their hands with questions. Then, finally, Sinleigh made a few gestures toward them and they turned toward each other to pair off like we had in Persuasion.
I trained my gaze on Connar’s profile, on his broad temple beneath his chestnut crew cut. At the same time, I watched for the parting of his mouth. There—he said something that I assumed was his casting word. My own rolled off my tongue as fast as I could propel it out.
Like when I’d watched him and Malcolm talk from my hiding spot in the forest a few days ago, my consciousness shot straight through the gap he’d opened up in his defenses. I hadn’t used a specific question this time, though. I just wanted a sense of his recent impressions, which should include some to do with me.
The sadness I’d caught in his expression rang through me with a pang of loneliness. I got a glimpse of Malcolm’s face on the clifftop where I’d told the Nightwood scion he might find Connar, along with a mix of hope and dread. Wanting to trust his friend, but afraid that he shouldn’t.
There was Connar’s dorm bedroom, flavored with a welcome aura of security. There, a snippet from a class with Professor Viceport, the confidence of forming something solid with his hands. And there—there was my form in front of him, my voice reaching his ears.
I focused on that moment as well as I could, and the image shifted. Not his feelings about me, but what he actually saw and heard. My plaintive smile curled into a malicious smirk; my eyes narrowed. A remark echoed through Connar’s thoughts as if from an earlier memory of my voice: Do you really think an idiot like you can stop me from getting what I want? My tone was so caustic I winced inwardly. With that, my concentration shattered.
I came back to myself on the makeshift ledge, shivering and tangled up inside. God, no wonder he hated me. If those impressions rose up every time he talked to me, every time he even thought about me…
It wasn’t persuasion. That fact had come through crystal clear. Maybe his mother had used some small element of that too, but the thrust of the spell was all illusion. Clouding his mind, making him believe I’d done and said and shown things I never really would have. Painting over the closeness we’d shared with a mockery of it.
How could I shatter that?
Jude might have an idea when I talked to him and the other guys about what I’d found out. Of course, it’d probably still require getting at the construct that was filling Connar’s head with all that garbage. Which was going to be awfully hard as long as his parents’ spells kept doing their work.
Unless…
The answer hit me as obvious as anything. I had the perfect tool against illusions hanging around my neck. If I could get Connar to put on the necklace or maybe even hold the dragon charm with the illusion detection magic activated, we could prove to him that he’d been deceived without needing to break the construct on him first. And once he could see what was happening, surely he’d let us help him?
I just had to pull off the first part of that equation. Hmm. Somehow I didn’t think he’d trust me enough to accept the necklace as a gift. And I couldn’t just have one of the other scions talk him into taking it—he’d recognize it as mine. He’d commented on the dragon charm in the past.
I wasn’t going to convince him of anything while I was perched up here—that was for sure. Carefully, I released my stance and edged one foot and then the other down the wall. It was a long climb and a whole lot of pain if I lost my grip.
When I reached the bottom, my muscles quivering and my breath short, I stopped for a moment to gather myself and then glanced around to make sure no one was looking my way. Stepping out from the illusion, I said a few words and sent up a waft of magic to dissolve the spells I’d cast. Jude would have to come around to take care of his when he had the chance.
While the classes continued inside the tower, I meandered around its base, debating my best course of action. In the end, the only solid approach I came up with was to wait and see what Connar did when he came out. I’d decide my next step then. I didn’t think confronting him in the middle of the green would go well for either of us. The more witnesses who saw his hostility, the more impact his mother’s spell would have even after we broke it.
It took more time before students started to trickle out of the building. I lingered in the shrinking shadow beside the tower, hugging my jacket close. Connar emerged—and veered off in the opposite direction, around the tower and onto the west field.
He walked alone. No one else was ambling around over there at the moment. I hesitated, but I couldn’t have asked for a better chance. With my heart thudding at the base of my throat, I hurried after him.
He heard my footsteps before I reached him. The second he started to turn, I picked up my pace even more.
I might only get one chance to say something that would catch his attention and make him listen.
His gaze connected with mine, his eyes already flaring with fury, and I forced the words out. “You blame yourself for what happened to Holden, even though your parents set the whole situation up. Even though you never wanted to hurt him.”
It was the most personal thing he’d ever told me, in a raw, unguarded moment when we’d been figuring out where we stood with each other. I hadn’t gotten the sense he told that story often or to many people.
Connar’s mouth had opened to hurl some insult at me, but he halted, his expression twitching as if startled. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he said, but he didn’t sound quite as aggressive as he had the other times I’d tried to talk to him outside of class.
I stopped too, leaving five feet of grass between us. My chest felt as tight as if I’d run a marathon. “You told me the story of what happened between you two because you wanted me to understand how other people see you. And I think because you know I don’t see you the same way. You trusted me enough to open up like that. And I’ve never broken that trust.”
“You—” His mouth twisted. Lord only knew what illusions were flooding his mind now. “You probably dug inside my head to find that. Or else you persuaded me to tell you. It doesn’t mean anything.”
I swallowed thickly. “I’ve seen you in your dragon form. I’ve watched you fly over the trees—I’ve felt how much you love that freedom. We flew together one—”
“Shut up!” Connar rasped, cutting me off. “Don’t throw all these lies at me. You jerked me around and used me, and I’m not letting it happen anymore.”
He was still standing there, though. He hadn’t marched away. I dragged in a breath and made the best plea I could.
“I swear to you that none of the things you think I did really happened. They’re illusions. You’re being manipulated, but not by me. Those memories never really happened, and they’ve got to be blurring out the things that did. I can prove it.”
I clutched my necklace and undid the clasp behind my neck. “Take this. There’s a spell on it to react to illusions. It’ll clear your head. Don’t you want to be able to sort out all the conflicting impressions you must have in there? Professor Burnbuck did the casting. You don’t have any reason to think he’d want to hurt you, do you?”
Connar stared at me and then the glass dragon charm in my hand. I held it out to him. He tensed and shook his head with increasing vehemence.
“I have no idea if any of that is true. You’re probably going to use it to get me back under your sway. Do you really think I’m going to be that stupid again?”
I looked straight at him, willing all the honesty I could into my voice. “I’ve never thought that you’re stupid. We can go to Professor Burnbuck right now, and he’ll confirm it. Please.”
He wavered. I saw it in his face, in the slight but noticeable sway of his body toward me. Then he jerked himself backward, all but baring his teeth at me.
“Stay the fuck away from me, or next time I’ll have to make sure you do.”
He took off without a backward glance, heading toward the lake. I stayed where I was. My feet felt leaden under me. What good would there be in following him? Even if every particle of my being wanted to call after him, to lay my heart at his feet, to make him see how much he mattered to me.
I knew what the solution to this horrible problem was now. I just had no idea how to make it happen.
Chapter Sixteen
Malcolm
I could tell the second I saw Rory coming out of the Ashgrave Hall stairwell that she was on a mission. She had that look, her jaw set and her eyes alight with determination, that sparked a flicker of desire in me even as I pitied whoever she was about to take that fire out on.
Then it occurred to me who it was most likely she was planning on confronting, given recent events. My stomach flipped over. Even the heir of Bloodstone had her limits.
She nodded to me with a tense smile as she moved to pass me by the front door, and I caught her arm.
“Where are you going all fired up, Glinda?”
She wrinkled her nose at the teasing nickname, but it did suit her, even if I’d developed an appreciation for her righteousness. A couple other seniors brushed past us on their way to the library, and she pitched her voice low. “Declan can’t meet with the rest of the barons until tomorrow. I figured I’d go talk to my mother now.”
Of course she’d figured that. “To try to change her mind about the new Nary policy?”
“What else?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Or to fill her in and get her to lay into the others, if she wasn’t part of the decision in the first place.”
I could tell from her expression that she didn’t believe my father, Killbrook, and Stormhurst would have taken a step like that without including the newly restored Baron Bloodstone. In fact, the timing suggested they’d gone ahead with it because she’d returned. When the four of us had discussed Rory’s discovery last night, I’d realized and pointed out to the others that this change at the university was probably the plan Agnes had overheard my parents talking about—a plan that had required a Bloodstone’s participation. They hadn’t meant Rory but rather her mother.
The only real question was how the other barons were going to justify keeping Declan out of the loop. If they’d wanted to do this before and didn’t have any qualms ignoring the near-barons in their midst, I didn’t know why they’d have waited.
Rory wouldn’t want to believe her mother had immediately jumped on board to hurt the students the Bloodstone scion had so often championed, though. That was her biggest problem. She understood in theory what the barons could be like—she’d seen how brutal our parents could be. But she’d never experienced it herself.
I didn’t want to think her mother would come down on her the way my father did on me… but I wasn’t so naïve to think it was unlikely.
“Come here,” I said, tugging her with me away from the door. When she balked, I gave her my most cajoling look. “Please. Just to talk for a minute.”
“Fine.” She followed me past the library windows around the curve in the hall. No one generally ventured as far as the stairs to the basement except us scions and the occasional maintenance staffer. I stopped there, deciding I was better off not trying to drag her all the way to the lounge when she’d already been in mid-quest. With a few quick words and a thrum of magic from my chest, I ensured this spot would be private enough for the time being.
When I looked at her again, for a second it was difficult to remember why I’d hauled her over here. Because I’d called her over to this exact spot before, months ago—I’d confronted her and accused her of ridiculous things because I’d been pissed off about the other scions taking her side over mine in the feud I could now admit had been my fault.
Something had come over her in that moment, something assured and powerful and so goddamned delicious my groin stirred at the memory. That was the first time we’d ever kissed—because she’d kissed me. It’d been a power play, not a gesture of affection, but fuck, it’d been hot all the same.
If she’d never taken that step, pushed me that way, I wasn’t totally sure we’d have ended up where we were now, with the forgiveness and trust she’d managed to grant me.
“Here we are again,” she said, with a probably unconscious flick of her tongue over her lips that made me suspect she was remembering the same moment.
“You made a good show of telling me off that last time.” Telling me how I was the last guy she’d ever want to be with. Somehow I couldn’t stop myself from adding, boneheaded as the comment might be, “You really thought you meant everything you said back then.”
Rory let out a huff of breath. “I did mean everything I said. If you were still acting like you were back then, we probably wouldn’t even be talking right now, let alone… anything else.” She paused, and a hint of a softer smile crossed her lips. “I’ll admit
that didn’t stop me from noticing you were a very good kisser.”
Well, fuck it all, now all I wanted to do was push her up against the wall and remind her of that fact for as long as humanly possible. With the self-control I’d gotten a lot of practice at in my time around Rory, I kept that urge in check. “It helped that I was particularly inspired by the girl I was kissing,” I said with a smirk I couldn’t hold back.
She rolled her eyes at me, but she was still smiling. For a brief time, anyway. A shadow crossed her expression, and she looked away.
“You know, the way you were talking back then, it was a lot like the things Connar’s saying now. Accusing me of manipulating the other scions for some kind of malicious purpose.”
My stance tensed at the pain in her voice. There was nothing I could do to make sure that pain went away—it wasn’t even because of me this time—and that was driving me crazy.
“I wasn’t in my right mind when I said that crap,” I said. “Connar isn’t either. We’ll snap him out of it too.”
“But no one was magically warping your memories. It was only you we were dealing with, not some awful spell.” She rubbed her forehead. “We can get back to work on figuring that out after I talk to my mom. At least Connar isn’t outright hurting anyone as long as he’s nowhere near me. And I can handle it better than the Naries can cope with the torture they’re being put through.”
There she was, being Glinda the Good Witch again. Putting people she barely knew ahead of herself.
“Look,” I said. “The whole reason I pulled you over here is to say—maybe you should leave this to Declan. One more day isn’t that long. He’s got years of practice maneuvering around the other barons, and if your mom didn’t know, then she’ll find out when he brings it up and be able to tell them off at the same time.”