Page 15 of The Witch & the Wolf

Z’Hana nodded. “We’ll need to go to the principal. Thank you again, students. We may need to call on you both once we have the necromancer’s report and a better idea of the direction we’ll take this. But for now, good work. Smart thinking to use your powers to get the skeleton out of the well, too, Arlo.” She smiled at him before the two teachers walked briskly down the corridor, leaving Arlo and Holly standing on the balcony.

Neither moved for a moment as they admired the view from the balcony, which included the expansive gardens and iron gates. In the distance, Holly could faintly pick out the village they’d come from. She didn’t seem too willing to leave, and they both eventually ended up sitting on the balcony’s ledge, their legs dangling in midair.

“Well, that date didn’t quite turn out as I expected,” Arlo said, and Holly whirled on him in shock.

“Date?”

“Uh, hanging out. Totally not a date.” He’d said that a little too quickly, and Holly continued to squint at him, suspicious. Not that she was opposed to calling it a date, exactly, but she didn’t want to feel like she was rushing into things or make any assumptions since she didn’t know what Arlo was thinking. It wasn’t that long ago when they were in the car, enveloped in an icy silence.

Take things slowly. She could do that. “How are you feeling now?”

“A little better. But still… weak.” He seemed like he hated admitting his weakness. Strong people didn’t like to reveal to others that maybe they weren’t as strong as they appeared. She hated it at times, too.

“Yeah. You wrecked yourself a bit with that magic,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Are you hungry? We can head to the dining hall.”

“I…” He attempted to get up, but his legs shook. “I’ll probably be in my room.”

“I’ll bring food. I won’t say anything. Okay?”

“Okay.” He appeared grateful for that. She helped him to his dormitory room, conscious of his need to appear strong to others, particularly when they passed a shapeshifter in the corridor. His quarters were in the left wing of the residency building – while the women were housed in the right wing. Both buildings were connected directly to Dreadmor by a long, wide corridor, but people often found ways around the separation – and sometimes, if they had more of one gender than another, dorms could be mixed. Right now, there were more women, so a few of them also took up residence in the traditional men’s side of the residence.

Students were allowed to live on campus for a maximum of two years before they had to move to residential spots in the surrounding villages since the idea was to gradually transition students to be able to adjust to living alone and maintain their own homes like full-fledged adults. Not that Holly felt like an adult yet. She was one on paper, but she knew she still had far too much to learn.

She left Arlo in his room and went to the dining hall to get whatever she could carry: buttered rolls, cartons of milk, some fruit. Nothing fancy, but she wanted to make sure Arlo had enough.

When she got back to the dorm, the front door was unlocked, so she eased herself into the dormitory – almost a direct copy of her own. Some students shared a room; some had singles. Arlo, like Holly, had a room to himself.

He was asleep on the bed, sprawled out like a starfish. He even snored. Holly placed the food on the table, debated whether she should wake him, and then shook him awake. He snapped awake with a groggy, grumbling noise but became a little more alert when she pointed him toward the food.

“Sorry. I know you were asleep, but you need to eat. Otherwise, you’re going to wake up in a foul temper.”

“Mm.” He rubbed his eyes, yawning. “God, I feel so exhausted. I didn’t even do that much with the magic.”

She handed him the roll, and he bit into it without a second thought, finishing it in seconds, then started on the next. Turned out he was really hungry. She quietly let him eat and drink while taking a quick scan of the room. Frugal decorations, all papers and pens tucked away in the desk in the corner by the window, a small counter with a coffee machine, and a laptop, cellphone, and eBook reader plugged into a charger.

When he finished gulping down the milk, she pointed at the reader. “You like books?”

“From time to time,” he said. “I don’t like the space they take up, though, so this was the compromise. You like to read?”

“From time to time,” she said, echoing his words. However, she hadn’t read anything other than textbooks recently. They smiled at each other, and he proceeded to show her the latest book he was reading – some sci-fi adventure novel. It was not her preferred genre, but given the huge list of sci-bi books she saw in his digital library, she suspected it might be his. They sat together on the bed, leaning together as he shared this small passion of his.

The way someone’s face lit up when they shared something important to them – she didn’t think she could ever get tired of such a thing. His yellow eyes sparkled with joy. His lips curled up into a soft, warm smile, a smile that her wandering, distracted brain found quite… appealing.

She shared with him some of her favorite books growing up – all with psychic elements, of course. She loved stories where the protagonist ended up finding their way to a shadowy world – which wasn’t too far from their own reality. They hadn’t read the same books, but that didn’t stop them from respecting the other’s reading tastes.

Eventually, Arlo’s eyes began to droop again, and even with the food and excitement of sharing something of interest with her, it was not enough to fully stave off the magical exhaustion. “Wake me up… two hours,” he murmured, tucking himself into bed. “If I don’t get up then, my sleep’s going to be screwed tonight, and I can’t let that happen.” He cracked a yawn, which made Holly want to yawn as well.

“Good night, sweet prince,” she said to him, and he grinned in response. “Two hours. Got it.”

Leaving him to sleep, Holly’s next course of action was to find her friends and share everything with them. Sure, Z’Hana and the dragon professor might want to keep things on the down low, but there was no way she was not sharing this kind of information with them. She texted Chloe and met up with the blonde a few minutes later.

“Kati and the others are in the village at the moment,” Chloe said after greeting her. “They mentioned something about seeing Professor Umber fly over the village, but he didn’t land in the village. Were you there?”

“Uh… about that…” Holly grinned before sharing the whole tale. Chloe listened with rapt attention, though Holly did leave out some of the parts where she might have been getting a little too cozy with Arlo. Some things just didn’t need to be shared in that way.

“No way,” Chloe gushed. “A dead kid in the well? That’s freaking crazy! Oh, wait until the others hear about this. They’ll never believe it in a million years!”

“I can’t believe no one even noticed anything suspicious about the well,” Holly added. “I mean, aren’t wells really creepy places for a lot of supernatural creatures?”

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