I could barely believe the words I knew I’d just heard. If it hadn’t been for the sincerity wafting from him into me to reinforce his sentiment, I would have thought it was a trick of some kind. Perhaps a well-magicked illusion.
But my empath abilities never lied.
“I saw the look in your eyes when you walked by in the cafeteria, and I knew that everything had been undone,” he said, his voice just a touch softer than usual, tainted by a hint of regret.
The weight in his stare as it met mine was so much heavier than I’d ever seen before. Not even in the throes of death with the magical blob in the basement had he looked so serious. So earnest. It was almost too much to bear.
“Not everything,” I said as the corner of my mouth twitched, “just most of it.”
The mischievous fairy’s expression mimicked mine. “So, not quite square one?”
“No. I’d say we’re back to right about the moment you realized you’d lost my collar.”
A full grin overtook his face. “So I should expect a punch if I screw up again?”
“I mean, I feel like expecting a punch from me at any time is just a solid survival instinct, but yes, your assessment is accurate.”
He took a step back to put distance between us. “Then I’ll do my best to stay out of range from now on.”
A blast of sadness slammed into me, then dissipated just as quickly as it had come. It happened so fast that Aidan’s expression never changed, his smile still intact. His air of joking or flirting or whatever it was still firmly in place.
And it made me see him in a totally different light.
Who was this boy with emotions as deep as the sea locked up tight inside him—so tight that, even when a crack exposed them, his façade didn’t change? At least not unless he wanted it to…
It was like the real Aidan was just as out of range as the one standing before me.
I forced a smile to cover the sadness I felt. “I guess it’s good that you don’t have to hold onto me anymore if this is your new distance policy.”
“I guess it is.”
His lack of delivery did little to help the mood in the room.
“Why don’t you need to hold onto me anymore, anyway?” I asked. “Last night, I thought it was because we’d damaged the source enough for it to no longer bother me, but given its state this morning, I don’t think that’s true.” The back of my hand warmed a little as the gold marking glowed ever so faintly. “Is it because of this? Because of what you did to help bring me back?”
I saw his shoulders tense at the question; saw his jaw flex, cutting harsh angles in his face. Those piercing blue eyes stayed firmly focused on me as he visibly fought with how to respond—or whether to respond at all.
“Aidan?” I said softly, taking a step closer. “What is it? What does it do?”
He let loose a sigh and raked his hand through his hair before plopping down on the edge of my bed.
“It’s an extension of my life, in a sense.”
What the... “Sorry, what?” I couldn’t hide the utter shock in my tone.
“I gave you a part of me, so to speak, to replace what you lost when you outpoured all that emotion to disable the headmaster and his keepers. Doing so changed you, and you would not have gotten better.” He looked up at me through his dark lashes. “That was my fault. I misjudged your power. I had to make it right.”
I could barely wrap my head around what he’d said, not to mention the roundabout apology buried in it all. The look of shock plastered across my face elicited a mirthless laugh from the fey lord sitting on my bed.
“So, what does this mean long-term?” I managed to ask.
His shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before. In truth, I didn't even know I could…”
His words were simultaneously comforting and yet not.
“But you did it anyway,” I said, daring another step, “to help me?”
He quirked a brow at me and stood. “I had a vested interest, remember?” He punctuated his words with a smirk that promised too many things to count, but trouble was definitely one of them. His bid to distract me almost worked, but the current of uncertainty that drifted my way gave me pause, a chance to digest what he’d said—and the timing of his actions.
“But,” I said, working through it all in my mind, “you didn’t need me anymore—you already knew where the room was. The mini-wolf led the way for the others…”
He slowly stepped closer, his body only inches from mine. “I know.”
Every nerve in my body alighted. “Oh…”
My arms took on minds of their own and started drifting up toward Aidan. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were too busy searching my face for something. Then they quickly shifted to the bathroom in the corner.
“Now, should we check on that ball of yours?”
He moved toward the place where the ball was most decidedly not hiding, and my blood pressure skyrocketed.
“Um, about that—”
“It should be right where I left it, should it not?” he asked as he looked back over his shoulder, his narrowed eyes not a comforting sight at all.
My hands fumbled into the pockets of my jeans. “It should be, but—”
The shower curtain screeched as he whipped it back like he was looking for the Wizard of Oz and stared at where the ball should be.
My fingers stopped frantically searching my pockets, because there, much to my surprise and Aidan’s delight, rested the crystal, soccer-ball-sized orb in the bottom of the shower.
Right where it was supposed to be.
Aidan turned to face me, and I swallowed back my nerves, then calmed the tension in my face. I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart slamming into my ribs.
“What’s the ‘but’?” he asked, drawing the curtain closed behind him.
“Was there a ‘but’?”
“There was most definitely a ‘but’.”
“That’s weird…”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t remember a ‘but’—”
“And yet I do. So, what was the ‘but’, little witch?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek to buy myself time. I knew I needed to tell Aidan about the ball that seemed to magically follow me around like a lost puppy dog. But every time I opened my mouth to try, the words just wouldn’t leave. And with every passing second, I could feel his mistrust growing—his guard falling back into place.
“I came back to see it!” I blurted out finally. “I just wanted to make sure it was all right.”
“And why couldn’t you just tell me that?” he asked, leaning in closer.
Irritation seeped into my tone. “Maybe because I knew you’d react exactly like you are? And why do you care, anyway? You didn’t want the ball in the first place! You’re half the reason I got stuck with the damn thing!”
“So that’s all? You just wanted to see it?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Shall I take a polygraph for you to confirm?”
That damn brow of his quirked again. “Tempting, but not necessary.” He brushed past me and walked out of the bathroom. “We should head to the library now.”
He pulled open my bedroom door and held it for me.
Welcoming the chance to escape the stalker-ball debacle, I snatched the book off my dresser and made my way into the hall.
We stood at the back of the library, staring at the shelf lining the wall—the one in the actual library. The door to the one Maddy and I had visited was gone, not that this surprised me. I could feel Aidan looking at me as I wondered how in the hell I could make it return.
“Don’t start,” I warned under my breath.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Just gimme a sec.” When he didn’t respond, I stepped toward the wall and pressed my hand against it. “I need to see more,” I whispered. “I need to learn more…”
And just like that, the entrance appeared. I stepped inside, Aidan right behind me.
I dared a glance at him as he took the place in.
“This is old magic,” Aidan said, running his hand along a shelf of golden-patinated spines. “Magic like that of Faerie. Magic older than this world…”
That sounded ominous.
“Umm...what world would it be from, if not here or Faerie?”
He pinned deadly serious eyes on me—eyes older than his eighteen years—and I nearly shrunk under their weight. “Nowhere good.”
Stellar. “I’m gonna need you to dial down the freaky stare and cryptic vibe for me because you’re wigging me out a bit—”
“Which was my goal.”
“Well, my goal was to show you this fun little pop-up library Maddy and I found and get some answers about my new little ball friend.”
“Then start reading,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the exit. “We shouldn’t linger any longer than necessary.”
I placed the book about the crystal ball down on the table and opened it. Immediately, I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t read the writing at all.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. Aidan was at my back in a second, crowding me as he read over my shoulder. “Can you read this mess?”
I looked back to find his features scrunched with incredulity. “Of course I can.”
When he didn’t start to read aloud, I threw a warning elbow to his gut, and he huffed out some air.
“Care to share with the class?”
“I was planning to read it and then give you the highlights, unless you’d prefer I break down every tedious detail for you. Would that be more to your liking?”
“Fine, just give me the gist—or read a section that’s actually helpful to me when you find one.”
“Yes, your highness,” he mumbled to himself. But he couldn’t hide the smirk tugging at his lips or the amusement rippling off of him.
Aidan scanned the ancient pages to find something helpful about the crystal ball hiding in my bathroom. Or at least I assumed it was still there. So far, it hadn’t shown up in my pocket again. And that made me wonder…
“Aidan?”
“Reading…”
“If you gave me some of your life force or whatever, does that mean we’re...bound somehow?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of being bound, magically speaking.”
I tried to let the weight of Aidan and me being bound sink in, but my mind rejected the idea. Way too much to unpack there. Best to keep it to one debacle at a time...
“But...what does that mean? Like, am I part fey now or something? Oh! Or part malum? Do I get to have cool shadow magic like you?” Aidan’s eyes lifted to me in a perfectly condescending stare. I took that as a no. “Then what’s the point of being bound to a fey lord?”
I was pretty sure I heard him mutter something about being alive sufficing as my reward, but his words were drowned out by the slide of a book against wood. I turned to search for the source of the noise and my eyes eventually landed on a dark green leather-bound book poking out from the rest. With Aidan distracted, I walked over and pushed onto my tiptoes to snag it from the bookcase. It was heavy in my hands, and I plopped down hard on my butt with it in my lap.
“This says that the crystal balls are each unique to their masters,” Aidan said, not looking up from the book.
“But that doesn’t make sense. I mean, this thing is old, so wouldn’t its master be that old, too? Too old for it to be the headmaster’s. So, why is it here? And how was the headmaster able to siphon magic with it?”
He looked up to find me sitting with the new book cradled in my lap. “What do you have there?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, flipping through the pages. “I heard it move, so I pulled it from the shelf.”
“Let me see,” he said, rushing over. “I don’t trust this place.”
The floor vibrated lightly beneath me, like a train was chugging down a track nearby. Only there wasn’t a train near Wadsworth. I looked to Aidan to confirm he’d felt it, too. His narrowed eyes searched the room.
“What did you say before the book moved?” he asked.
My eyes fell to the book in my lap and focused on the page in front of me. “I asked what the point of being bound to you was…”
He reached down and hauled me to my feet before he tucked the book back into the open spot on the shelf.
The floor shook yet again, though this time with a little more force.
“We should leave this place,” he said under his breath as he pulled me away from the threat we could not see.
“But the books—”
“Can stay where they are,” he bit out as earthquake-like tremors wracked the room and tossed us wildly with every step we took.
“I’m taking this one,” I said, snatching the ball book from the small table in the middle of the room before it slid off.
“No!” Aidan wheeled on me and tried to take it, but I pulled away.
“We need answers, Aidan. The library led me to this for a reason.”
“That reason might not be noble,” he shouted over the rising din of books falling all around us. “Did you stop to consider that?”
No. No, I hadn't, but I had no intention of confirming that for him.
A giant tome flew sideways into Aidan and knocked him toward the door. I lunged for him, but the floorboards beneath my feet buckled and broke, creating a hurdle of sharp wood to navigate.
“Aidan!” I shouted as I reached for him. The mark on my hand flared, and he caught himself by the door frame. A split second later, he catapulted himself back into the room and landed at my side.
“Come on!” He ushered me forward, arms outstretched to keep any deadly books from knocking us unconscious as we tried to escape.
The whole room felt like it was convulsing, shaking and jostling us to the point of discombobulation. It was nearly impossible to focus on anything. Then a terrible cracking sound rang out from behind us, and I dared a look past him to see the floor caving in.
“Run!” I screamed as I stumbled toward the exit. I could feel him right behind me as we hurled ourselves through the mysterious library’s entrance. We hit the ground hard, just missing the two chairs Maddy and I had sat in half an hour earlier.
Fully expecting to have to flee the building, I was on my feet and ready to run when I realized something; the regular library wasn’t moving at all. No floorboards ajar. No books askew.
Aidan looked at me and the book clutched to my chest, then frowned.
“What in the Mother McFuck was that?” I wheezed, my anxiety like a vise around my lungs.
“A sign of things to come, I imagine,” was his only reply.
His anger was peppered with fear, poking holes in his defenses. I quickly let go of his hand because, if I was being honest, Aidan silently freaking out about the library that had just tried to kill us only freaked me out more. And I hardly needed help with that.
I clutched the book I'd salvaged tighter to my chest. “At least I have the book.”
His lips pressed to a grim line. “But at what cost?”
I looked past him at the benign bookcase behind him—the one that had only moments ago been a portal to a magical, perhaps forbidden, library, full of ancient books. Books that, according to Aidan, were older than this world.
“I don’t know,” I said, squaring my shoulders, “but hopefully one that two malums, an empath, and a half-vamp/half-sorcerer can afford.”
CHAPTER NINE
Maddy
After the weird freak show with Nancy, my first instinct was to keep running until I found Cece, then beg her to make everything better. No...to make it all go away.
I wanted to see my mom. I wanted to go home. I wanted to escape Wadsworth and burn the place to the ground on my way out. Yet all I’d done lately was get into trouble, then leave it to my older sister to bail me out. Maybe it was time for me to step up and take charge of what happened to me next.
My steps slowed as I reached the hallway
leading to our rooms. And that’s when I started thinking…
In a short span of time, two really strange things had happened. First, the headmaster had caught us almost in the act of ransacking his office to find evidence. But instead of screaming and calling for the keepers to haul us away, he’d acted like we were welcome visitors. Not once had he mentioned that we were the kids who’d had a magical shootout with him and the keepers the night before in the basement and then stuffed him into the crack I’d made in the creepy—and evil—power source. The fact that he’d behaved like it hadn’t happened was enough to make my head spin. When Cece had quizzed him about Janie’s death, I’d almost freaked out, but it had been a good idea on my sister’s part to bring it up. Cece had handled the conversation in a casual way that would’ve fooled me if I’d been on the receiving end of her statements.
And the headmaster had seemed puzzled, surprised that not only was Janie dead, but that I might be involved. He’d said he was going to look into it. He hadn’t railed about me murdering her.
If I hadn’t seen the scars from our magic still coating the basement walls, I’d almost believe that nothing had happened. Not to the headmaster, and not to Janie.
Yet my roommate remained missing.
Now I was fresh from the incident with Nancy, who had also acted like the world had continued to spin normally even after the blast last night. The eruption of power should’ve brought everyone inside Wadsworth to their knees before they stormed the place to find out what was going on. Nancy had been more interested in developing my—to her—almost nonexistent power. Ha. If she’d been downstairs last night, she’d have a different opinion about that.
Until I’d mentioned the key to everyone’s weirdness. Janie…
Which brought things back to me. I was the common denominator in both incidents. Had unleashing my beast, first with Janie and then last night, been the cause of everyone forgetting? Conceited of me, but here we were. I’d be stupid not to consider it as an option.
Rogue Reformatory: Broken (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 2) Page 7