“I know,” I said. “I just worry.”
Aislinn’s brow knits tight. “If my family knew I was on speaking terms with him...my father would pull me out of University. That’s why we only meet late in the evenings. It’s just that we both love books so much. It’s so nice to have someone to discuss literature with who’s so...insightful. He’s incredibly well-read.”
“Seems he’s as well-read as you,” I concur.
“You know, Elloren,” Aislinn says, her voice tentative, “talking to Jarod...it just makes me wonder if...if our people might be mistaken about some things.”
I settle back, catching sight of a familiar constellation through the branches. “I know what you mean.”
We’re quiet for a moment, looking up at the stars.
Chilled, I slide my hands into my cloak pockets. My hand scrapes against hard, jagged pieces.
Lukas’s broken portrait. I’d completely forgotten about it.
I fish it out of my pocket and hold it in my opened palm. I push the two pieces together to form his ridiculously handsome visage.
Aislinn gapes. “You have a portrait? Of Lukas Grey?”
I nod, resigned. “I broke it by accident and lifted it from Fallon’s room.” I fill Aislinn in on everything that happened, including Diana’s outrageous nudity and how effectively she dealt with Fallon Bane.
Aislinn struggles to keep down the incredulous laughter that’s bubbling up, and I start to laugh, too.
Aislinn shakes her head as she fights back her grin, gesturing toward the portrait. “Fallon will freeze you if she finds out.”
I slide the pieces back into my pocket and pat the side of my cloak. “Not if it’s safely hidden away, she won’t.”
My fingers worry the portrait pieces through my cloak as trepidation pricks at me.
She’ll never find out. How could she?
*
It’s later that same evening when Ariel finally speaks to me again.
The room is a completely different place than it used to be. Wynter and I have cleaned it up, and the majority of the room, except for Ariel’s third of it, is now neatly swept and organized. A small rookery that Rafe has thrown together now sits by Ariel’s bed. It houses two stolen chickens and an owl with a broken wing that Ariel has been nursing back to health.
I have to admit, I’m a bit fascinated by the owl and enjoy watching the smooth way it can rotate its head almost completely around, as well as looking into its beautiful, wide eyes. I’ve never been so close to one before.
Ariel is an apprentice in animal husbandry, her desk a haphazard jumble of books devoted mainly to avian medicine. As unfocused and unhinged as she is around people, with animals, she’s calm and skillful. She loves birds especially, even to the point where she refuses to eat them.
I lie on my bed in the warm room, studying, a mountain of books and notes surrounding me, a fire roaring in the fireplace and casting a soft glow over everything. The owl and the chickens are perched on Ariel’s bed next to her, and Wynter is sitting on the floor, sketching the owl, while Ariel pats it gently.
Ariel unexpectedly looks over at me, eyes narrowed, her head resting on a pillow. “You could have had me sent away.”
The sound of her rough voice startles me, and Wynter’s sketching hand freezes in place.
It takes me a moment to find my voice. “I know.”
“I hurt you,” she insists. “You were bloody and covered in bruises. You could have had me sent to...to that place.”
“I know,” I say again, ashamed and uncomfortable. “I decided not to.”
“But,” she presses, becoming angry, “you were bloody...”
“I told everyone that I tripped down the stairs.”
She continues to stare at me as her eyes take on a glazed, pained expression. “I still hate you, you know.”
I swallow and nod. Of course she does. I deserve it. She destroyed a precious belonging, but I caused the death of something living, something she loved.
“I don’t expect you to ever stop hating me,” I finally say with effort. “But I want you to know... I’m sorry for what happened to your kindred. I didn’t know Lukas would do that... I didn’t think... I was so angry at you. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says flatly, cutting me off and rolling onto her back, staring blankly at the ceiling. “She’s better off dead than here. I wish I was dead.”
I’m shocked. “Don’t say that.”
“All right,” Ariel amends, her mouth curling up into an angry sneer. “I wish you were dead instead. And every other scholar here. Except for Wynter.”
It’s a fair enough sentiment, and I let it hang in the air unchallenged as Wynter regards Ariel with sad understanding and then turns to me, her expression softening to a warm look of approval.
I turn my attention back to my text, unexpectedly touched. And, oddly enough, I feel, for the first time since I’ve come to the University, a small sense of peace blooming inside me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Trystan
“Where’s Rafe?”
“Rafe’s out,” Trystan says absently as he lies on his bed, not bothering to look up from the large Physiks text he’s engrossed in.
The eleventh month has come, and with it a killing frost, the trees suddenly laid bare, the fire in the North Tower now a necessity.
It’s late, the end of another week, and I’ve spent the last hour wrestling with my History of Gardneria text, new questions clamoring for my attention as I read and reread parts of the large volume. Things aren’t adding up, and I want to talk to Rafe about it.
We’re supposed to be Gardnerians, the Blessed Ones, the First Children, blameless and pure. And all of the other races are supposed to be the Evil Ones, the Cursed Ones. But more and more it seems as if life has the disturbing habit of refusing to align itself into such neat columns.
It’s all extremely confusing.
“What’s Rafe doing?” I ask as Trystan continues to read.
“Hiking. As usual,” he says absently.
“Oh.” That’s disappointing. Rafe’s always out and unavailable lately.
“He’s hiking with Diana Ulrich,” Trystan says as an afterthought. “He’s been out hiking with her every night this week.”
My eyes widen. “He has?”
Trystan glances up at me, perplexed by my surprise.
“She’s the Lupine girl,” I point out.
“I know,” he says calmly, looking back down at his book, as if the idea of Rafe spending so much time with a shapeshifter is somehow normal.
I think back to that night in the dining hall, to the way Rafe and Diana seemed to instantly fall in with each other. The look on her face when she glanced back at him, just before leaving.
“Don’t you think that’s a little...strange?” I prod.
Trystan shrugs. “Life is strange.”
My worry spikes. Rafe can’t become interested in a Lupine. He’ll bring the wrath of two powerful races straight onto his head. And hers, too.
“Do you think they...like each other?”
“Maybe,” Trystan says flatly.
I blink at him, really concerned now. “She’s a shapeshifter.”
Both his eyebrows go up. “Translation: ‘she’s an Evil One’?”
“Sweet Ancient One, no,” I sputter, sounding shrill and defensive to my own ears. “Of course I don’t think she’s evil, but...but Rafe can’t like her that way. Our people aren’t exactly on good terms with each other.”
Trystan smirks, his tone bitter. “So you think affection respects diplomatic pettiness?”
I fume at his sarcasm. “Perhaps it should. When it’s hazardous to your future.”
Trystan rolls his eyes and goes back to reading.
“How can you be so calm?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that. Trystan is always calm. And right now it’s driving me up the wall.
“Ren, maybe they’re just friends.”
I snort derisively at this. “Have you even met her?”
“No,” Trystan replies, his tone clipped. “I haven’t.”