Everybody’s breath was cut off instantly, and the silence in the room was absolute.
A second later, we heard it again—somethingslidingagainst the entrance door to our chambers, on the other side. Something sliding, then slamming onto the wood.
All the girls made for the door together, screamingwait till I catch you, losers!,thinking it was boys come to prank us or something.
Not going to lie, I was as scared as I was excited to follow them to the door to see who it was, and Gina pulled it open with all her strength, ready to scream her guts out, but…
There was nobody there.
“Oh.”
The hallway was empty, no boys in sight.
“What do we have here?”
Then everyone leaned down to look at something on the floor right in front of the threshold. I was too curious not to get closer and push the girls to the side until I saw, too.
It was a painting.
“Oh, this is gorgeous, actually,” said Kayla, and shegrabbed the canvas without a frame and raised it up for all of us to see better.
The girlsooh-edandaah-ed in wonder, but I couldn’t breathe well enough to let out any kind of sound. Because the canvas was white and the shapes on it were painted in black. Just black on a white canvas, no other color.
The ink looked like smoke, diffused around the edges. It showed a structure, tall and with a lot of windows, something I didn’t recognize or even tried to because all my attention was on the small letters at the bottom left corner.
“Who’s this from?”
“Such a pretty piece—I didn’t know anybody here could paint like this!”
“Probably a Blackfire—look at this black paint…”
“Maybe it’s a prank?”
“Or maybe they dropped it here by accident?”
They didn’t, they didn’t, they d?—
“They didn’t,” I finally choked out.
My voice sounded funny to my ears.
All the girls turned to me. My cheeks were already red when I reached out my finger to point at the corner of the canvas, at the two letters written with a black pen—TT.
“That’s…that’s…I know him. It’s for me.”
It was from Taland Tivoux, and I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but Ismelledhim on that ink, saw him on those lines. It was from him—I was a hundred percent sure of it.
Then the girls began to laugh and pat me on the back and cheer for me.
“Somebody’s cunt-struck, all right!” one of the girls—Beatrix who was a Redfire—said.
“That’ssoromantic!” said someone else.
“I’d personally like a bit of blue mixed in, but it doesn’t look so bad…”
“It’s perfect, actually. Just shadows—and it looks so real!”
“Is anybody going to tell me whatcunt-struckmeans?!”