by Lucy Auburn
"I don't understand your metaphor, but I'll give you what you want if you insist." He reaches over his shoulder into one of his sheaths, and I tighten my grip on the knife, certain this is some kind of trick. "It won't help you, though. The ring transports at most two people at once, and last I checked you had far more than that at your beck and call. You'll have to choose."
Holding the ring out, he smirks at me. I snatch it from his fingers, frowning at him. "I'll just do like they do in those math problems and take one person over at a time."
Maybe I'll leave Grayson for last, let him think I might abandon him. A little fear could improve his personality.
"It won't work," Loathsome insists. "The ring only goes on two trips before needing to be recharged. Last I checked, you don't have the stuff to get it going. It runs on my blood only."
He pushes a sleeve back, revealing criss-crossing scars going up his arm where he's apparently fed the ring's powers. Staring down at the ring, I notice for the first time that the gaudy gemstone in the center of it is a deep, startling red. It takes all my willpower not to drop it on the spot—the last thing I want is to be holding something he bled into recently.
"I could help you," he offers, a dark expression in his eyes. "If you agree to stay here with me, I can feed the ring enough for you to take all of your friends out. All you have to do is perform the ceremony to bind us together right here, right now, and my blood is your blood."
"I'll figure out some other way," I tell him, even though I have no idea what that other way will be. "The last thing I need is help from a bastard like you."
"Suit yourself." I turn on my heels to go, wanting as far away from him as quickly as possible. But his voice follows me long after I've left the grove with the fountain. "Just know, Ellen Arizona, that you'll be back. I am the keeper of your father's secrets! And the only chance you have of surviving long enough to fulfill his legacy."
Nonsense. Whatever he knows about my biological father, it's nothing I've needed to survive my whole life. Everything he says, everything he does, is lies—and the sooner I'm gone from this mad place and his wildly changing personality, the better.
I'm not the girl who falls in love with the beast. Not this time around. If the Black Serpent needs saving, he can find another damsel in distress.
Running through the woods, I find the edge again, where the trees mirror back on themselves. The others are waiting for me; Eve is crouched by Mason's side, tearing up her shirt and wrapping it around the shallow cut on his arm. I can't help but think it won't be any use—what he needs is for his weakness to go away, and that's impossible.
"I got the ring," I tell Grayson, my instincts making me turn towards him in the middle of a crisis—he may be an asshole, but he makes decisions quickly, and he has Mason's best interests at heart. "He claims that it can only take two people at a time, and only for one roundtrip before it has to be revived with his blood."
"Then bleed him dry," Levi suggests. "We can take a tumbler of his blood with us."
Grayson shakes his head, a frustrated expression drawing his brows together. "Blood magic doesn't work without the cooperation of the bleeder. If it did, we'd all be using it to kill our Marks." He has a gruesome point. "What we need is to get all of us out in one go."
An idea sparks in me. I get it from the carvings on the door, which seem to be telling me something. Holding the ring up, I motion for Wyatt—who's still trying desperately to pry the doors open—to step aside.
"I want to try something. It might work, it might not, but if it doesn't, one of us can take Mason to safety while the others stay behind to deal with the consequences."
"Who will go?" Grayson arches a brow. "Because our powers don't work unless we're together. So if you were thinking of skipping out—"
"Eve will take Mason somewhere safe, if it comes to it. But it won't. Because I'm going to figure out another way." Please, for the love of all that's holy, let me figure out another way. I don't want to listen to another sanctimonious lecture from Grayson or watch him not say I told you so. "Just shut up and let me try this."
The doors to Cain University have been fickle and strange so far in my life, but maybe this one time they can give me what I want without making me work for it. As Wyatt steps aside, he watches me closely, and I can feel the heavy weight of his gaze. I hope this works, and not just for Mason. They all came here for me, after all, and even the Fuckfaces don't deserve to be trapped with a madman like Loathsome forever.
Looking up from tearing her shirt into strips of bandages for Mason's wound, Eve says grimly, "I hope you know what you're doing."
Me too. The ring is heavy in my palm. Leaping up to stand beside me, Penny rubs her face against my ankle. At least if this goes to shit, she'll still be okay—she can just walk her little kitty butt right through the portal and live on campus without me.
Taking a deep breath, I approach the doors. The carvings are the same ones I remember from the moment I first saw them: reliefs of killers in the midst of acts of violence. Stabbings, poisonings, beheadings, drownings—all of it depicted lovingly by the artist who carved them. Unlit by magic, they're gruesome and crude. So are the wrought iron vines and flowers in front of the heavy oak, covered in poisonous plants.
The heavy handles of the doors, cast out of wrought iron and nailed to their center, are cold to the touch as I press my right hand against them. I feel the weight of what I'm about to try, and I take a deep breath, then reach out to put the gaudy ring on a thin swirl of ivy right near the handles. It slides down and nestles in the bottom U of the dark branch, its deep red gemstone warm in the sunlight overhead.
For a moment I feel foolish. Then I push forward, against the handles of the doors, using all my strength.
They warm beneath my touch and slowly part. There's a creak to their hinges that wasn't there before, and the glow of their magic is a deep, blood-tinted red instead of the warm yellow-orange of sunlight I remember from my own passage through, but they're working.
Relieved, I look over my shoulder to exchange a grin with Wyatt, who reaches out to help me push the doors open—and behind him I spot a familiar dark figure stalking through the woods. The Black Serpent has recovered enough to track us down.
"Hurry, go through now!" I motion for Eve to get Mason through. "He's coming back."
Eve gets Mason's arm around her shoulder but struggles to get him to his feet, so Wyatt jumps in to help, taking the rest of the prone illusionist's weight. The sight of him in such bad shape makes my heart twist with guilt and frustration—I wish there was something I could do to help, but I'm completely powerless here. All I can do is push the doors wide open so that Wyatt and Eve can drag Mason through, into the glowing red light on the other side.
Levi goes next, bounding past the open doors with physical grace and enough noise to wake a herd of elephants. Penny trots at his heels, sleekly moving past the doors.
Which just leaves Grayson. Who is, for some reason, standing still, watching the Black Serpent rapidly approach.
"Grayson! Move your ass already. What are you staring at?"
"Doesn't he seem familiar?" Grayson turns, pressing his cane into the soft ground as he takes a step towards the doors on his bad leg. "There's something about him. I feel like I've seen that face before."
"Just hurry!" Reaching out, I grab Grayson's hand and pull him towards the open doors, resenting his slowness the whole time. "I should just leave you behind. It's what you'd do if I were the slow one."
He cuts his eyes at me, striding forward despite the way it twists his mouth downward at the corners, his pain apparent as he puts weight on his bad left leg. "Aren't we lucky you're so magnanimous about me being such a burden? Let go of my hand. I can go through on my own."
"Gladly."
As I drag him through, I grab the ring off the wrought iron. Then I quickly follow on his heels—which is right when Lothario catches up to us. Panicked, I push the doors shut with everything I've got, but t
hey're incredible heavy and uncooperative. For a moment it looks like the Black Serpent will follow us through, so I set my heels and push—and they shut in an instant, not because of my strength, but because Wyatt helps me, his hands above my head on the broad, heavy oak of the doors.
"Thanks," I tell him, as the doors seal shut on the Black Serpent's twisted, angry face. "For a second there I thought we were in trouble."
"Oh, we are." Grayson's dry voice makes me frown. "Turn around, Ellen. You've brought us out of the frying pan and into the goddamned fire."
Spinning on my heels, I suck in a breath, staring at the world laid out around us.
We're standing on the campus of Cain University—but not really. The building at the end of the drive is crumbling and blackened at the edges. Bricks are torn out of the wall that encircles the campus, and ivy climbs the wrought iron gates, which squeal on their hinges as an eerie wind pushes them back and forth.
I'd almost think it was the actual Cain University, and something terrible had happened while we were gone, if not for the blazing red light of the sky overhead. Every tree, every brick, every stone all around us is coated in a red glow, like blood. No sounds of life come from the campus—no students walk its grounds, and based on the way the buildings have fallen to ruin, none have in a long time.
"What is this place?" I ask aloud, dread growing in my stomach as I pace towards the crumbling walls. "What's going on?"
Eve, kneeling on the ground next to a shallowly breathing Mason, is the one who answers. "It doesn't matter where we are. What matters is, how the hell are we going to make sure Mason doesn't die before we find a way out of here? Because at this rate, he doesn't have much longer."
Chapter 7
"What happened? How did we get here?" Even Penny looks subdued by this strange, otherworldly version of the campus. Turning around, I find with a sinking heart that the doors are gone completely. "It doesn't make sense. The ring was the only safe way out of the pocket dimension... at least, that's what he said. It should've worked."
Grayson points out, "So the man who kidnapped you lied to you. What a shocker."
"I didn't use it as intended." Panicked, I put the ring on my finger, and feel instantly better when it warms up against my skin. "There's still some magic in it. Eve—you get Mason out of here, and see if anyone back on the real campus can figure out where we are."
"Got it," she says, taking the ring from my outstretched hand. "I hope you're right about this thing working."
"It's how he got me there in the first place. And it should have one more trip in it. Just make sure Mason gets the help he needs."
"I will."
There's no one I trust more with this task than Eve. So as she pushes the ring onto the finger where she wears her gaudy Shadow Fold ring, I try to feel mostly relieved, and not frightened about the fact that she's taking my only way out of here with her. Pulling Mason towards her, she draws him up until his back rests against her chest, then hugs her arms around him. He makes a groaning noise, eyes fluttering opened, and relief fills me.
"What's going on?"
"Don't worry about it," Grayson tells him. "Eve is going to take you home."
Closing her eyes, Eve says, "Alright, let's do this thing."
I hear her draw in a deep breath, then hold it for a long moment. I can imagine what she's doing: picturing the halls of Cain University—the right one this time—and imagining that she and Mason are headed there. Grasping the ring on her finger, she lets the breath out slowly, bit by bit.
After a moment, she disappears.
But Mason doesn't go with her.
He gasps as he falls to the ground, Eve no longer supporting his upper body weight. Rushing to his side, I kneel next to him, staring at the blood that's soaked through his shirt, stained his jacket, and turned over a dozen strips from Eve's shirt a dark crimson color. All because I threw a sword into the air without thinking, like I'm some kind of badass and not a novice at this stuff.
Grabbing his hand, I burst into tears. "It's all my fault. I never should've thrown that sword like an idiot. You didn't even get the chance to fight before I'd fucked you over!"
"You made one little mistake. That doesn't make it your fault." Mason's eyes go to me, and he frowns, squeezing my hand tight despite his current condition. "Trust me, if you hadn't thrown that sword my way, I would've gotten in trouble some other way. How do you think I got these scars?" He gestures towards the slice across his brow and in the corner of his mouth. "Before I knew better, I used to challenge all the other students to duels with blades. Now, not so much."
Sniffling, I try to suck up my embarrassing display of emotion, and wipe away my tears. "You seem better. At least now you're up and talking."
Wyatt chimes in, "He was f-faking it. Didn't wa-want to... fight."
Mason rolls his eyes. "Thanks, friend. You're a real help."
"I kn-know."
"Are the waterworks over with?" Levi asks. "Because we've got to figure out a way to get out of this place. Crying and holding Mason's hand isn't exactly going to make his boo boos better."
"Oh, give it a rest," I snap back at him. "I was upset for a reason. We can't all be bags of snark twenty-four seven."
As I look up at Levi, I notice that Grayson is watching me, a small frown on his face. His eyes are fixed on the spot where I'm holding Mason's hand. It takes me a moment to realize: we're not in training class or fighting anyone. I didn't need to grab his hand to boost my powers or his. I just held it instinctively, out of a need for comfort.
Not comfort for him, though. Comfort for me. Because I needed to know that Mason was going to be okay. I need to reach out and touch him.
Something Grayson, with his keen ice blue eyes, has no doubt noticed as I cried and babbled over him like some kind of dramatic teenage girl.
Dropping Mason's hand abruptly, I soak up the rest of my tears with the sleeve of my hoodie and pinch my cheeks until I feel less like dissolving into a puddle of useless goo. The last thing I want to be doing in front of Grayson goddamned Hughes is sobbing and carrying on.
Mason makes a noise of protest, lying down on the ground, his face pale. Reaching out, he grabs my hand, insisting, "Don't let go. It feels better when you're holding my hand."
Horror shoots through me, and I feel my cheeks heat. Sure, Mason and I slept together—if by slept together you mean he fucked me up against a wall until I could barely walk straight—but that doesn't mean I'm okay with PDA. I told him it was casual. Besides, I'm not girlfriend material. Especially not emotionally comforting girlfriend material. He'll be disappointed if he expects me to be soothing.
And Grayson is still watching us like a hawk watches a mouse, his eyes narrowed, his big, insufferable brain no doubt thinking a mile a minute. Any second now he'll figure out that Mason and I have had sex, and for some reason I desperately don't want him to know. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Leaning down towards Mason, I hiss at him, "What are you doing? Let go of my hand."
"I told you," he says in a louder voice, one everyone can no doubt hear, "it feels better when you hold my hand. The bleeding is slowing down. It's almost like I don't have a weakness at all."
I blink at him, stupefied. That's the last thing I thought he would say. Here I was, jumping to conclusions about feelings and relationships, and all Mason meant was that he physically felt better.
"Interesting." Grayson stares down at us. "That must be one side affect of the Conduit connection. Ellen, don't stop holding his hand—we need to slow the blood down as much as possible. Wyatt, do you think you could search this area, figure out if there's anything unusual going on?"
Wyatt is staring at the spot where Mason's hands and mine are interlocked, some strong, unreadable emotion on his face. If I didn't know better I'd almost think it was jealousy, but I can't tell what of: the physical connection we're sharing, or the fact that just touching me is making Mason's weakness go away, while he trips over his own tongue. He tears
his eyes away and jerks his head at Grayson in assent instead of speaking, then turns and runs into the ruins of the campus, his large footsteps taking him impossibly fast.
"Huh." Levi crosses his arms and cocks his head, observing us just like Grayson is, making me feel like some kind of fish in an aquarium. "It's too bad you have to be touching for it to work. I wonder if I could get my stealth back if you touch me... of course, you'd have to be just as stealthy as me for that to be useful, and you've got nothing on my grace."
I roll my eyes at him. "What, just because you were in the circus or whatever?"
"I was a tightrope walker," he says, raising his chin proudly. "If it weren't for my weakness, I'd be back in that tent every weekend, performing for an adoring crowd. But no one wants to watch a loudass cross a rope."
"Seems to me you got off easy in the weakness department." I motion back and forth between him and Mason, who's still very weak despite the fact that our grasping hands are slowing down his bleeding. "I mean, so your footsteps are loud. So what? Mason could've died."
"You don't get it." Levi shakes his head, while Grayson stalks away from us both, either tiring of the conversation or eager to survey our surroundings for a way out. The poisoner is staring at me resentfully, feet planted. "I loved walking that tightrope. It was what I lived for. My powers took away the only thing I had left to look forward to, and now I live in one place, never traveling, working in secret, no one to show my talents to. Every year that passes, I get older, and one day my body won't be able to walk a tightrope at all anymore. And in the meantime, I'm the most useless assassin in existence, because everyone hears me coming."
I hadn't really thought of it that way. The Fuckfaces' lives before they showed up at the university are completely unknown to me, and I didn't ever think I'd really care about their pasts. After all, we're just here to graduate together and survive—what happens after that is anyone's guess, but ever since I went to prison, I've lost the ability to look too far into the future or the past. I try to live my life surging towards the next problem, doing what I can to survive now and not look back at all the pieces of my life that are in shatters.