Page 51 of Gothikana

It was an attic. A huge attic.

It was painted off white, with four thick brown wooden pillars going from the floor to the beams in the ceiling. The roof overhead was slanting on one side until it met a row of windows on the vertical wall right in front of her. The windows continued to the wall on her right side. A bed, much bigger than any she’d ever seen but one he probably needed with his size, was pushed up against the one wall without any windows, to her left. Right beside her, next to the door, was a tall stack of shelves filled with books. A big armchair was pushed up against a window, right next to a small table holding a sleek laptop and glasses folded over them. The light in the room came from a lamp on the small bedside table and one hanging overhead in a broken chandelier.

The room was eclectic, as though parts had been collected from different places and put together as one.

She was in love.

Corvina had never expected something like this, something so chaotic and not neatly synchronised from him. And watching the space, putting together everything she’d glimpsed from him, she realised that while Mr Deverell was the controlled, neat, intelligent creature of habit, Vad was wilder, more chaotic — just like his name, untamed.

‘Close the door,’ he instructed her, taking a seat on the armchair, sitting in the way she imagined kings must have sat eons ago, legs spread slightly, leaning back, elbows resting on the arms, one hand on the side of his face, eyes on her.

She didn’t know how smart it was, being alone with him, but then she never claimed to be smart. She was more driven by emotion than logic, more attuned with her senses than her brain, more adept at understanding instincts than rationale. Which was exactly why she closed the heavy door, sealing them in the space together, breaking another one of the rules.

‘Sit.’ He indicated the bed, and she hesitated, before silently perching on the edge, watching him.

‘Tell me about the shadow first,’ he instructed, sitting still, his entire focus on her. In the muted light of the room, he looked intimidating.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Corvina stayed still, imitating his severity, and told the bald-faced lie.

‘I’m talking about’ — he leaned forward, elbows coming to rest on knees — ‘you running from your class like the hounds of hell were onyour heels. You needed to get to the tower where a boy was already on the roof, about to fall to his death. When I asked you, you told me it was a shadow. So, tell me, Corvina. What’s with the shadow? And why did you have to get to the tower? Did you know about Troy?’

She shook her head immediately. ‘No.’ The denial flew from her lips. ‘I swear I didn’t know about him.’

‘But you knew something.’ Vad caught her omission, his gaze brutal in trying to make sense of everything.

Corvina bit her lip, her hands fisting her skirt.

‘Whatever you tell me doesn’t leave this room,’ he told her after a moment.

She chuckled. ‘That’s not what worries me. I—’

‘What?’

She broke their gaze, looking down at her hands. ‘I don’t want to be crazy,’ she whispered softly, admitting to the deepest, most fierce desire of her heart. ‘And talking about it, I’ll sound it.’

‘Look at me,’ he gritted out, his tone reminiscent of when he’d said the same words to her weeks ago.

Her fingers twisted with her skirt before she took a deep breath and brought her eyes up to lock with his.

‘This castle is crazy, Corvina,’ he told her. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

God, she wanted to. She so badly wanted to believe in him, so badly wanted the atmosphere in the room to absorb all her secrets as she let them out of her lips, trusting someone with them out of choiceand not necessity. More than that, she wanted him to believe her, to see her, to tell her it was okay and she’d be okay and she wasn’t going mad.

‘Okay, let’s bargain. A secret for a secret,’ he offered. ‘You give me one of yours and I’ll give you one of mine.’

‘You can’t handle my secrets, Mr Deverell,’ she told him with a toneless laugh.

‘You have no idea what I can handle, Miss Clemm. And I told you to call me Vad when we’re alone.’

‘You also said we wouldn’t be alone again,’ she pointed out, settling back a bit more on the bed.

Vad sighed and put a hand inside the pocket of his jacket, bringing out a piece of folded paper. He picked up the glasses from the table at his side, the square black frames somehow adding more gravitas to his already arresting form.

‘You told me your mother is institutionalised,’ he reminded her of their conversation in the car. ‘However, you didn’t tell me you admitted yourself to the institute for two months with her.’

Her heart began to pound.

‘How do you know that? It’s not in my file.’

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