Page 54 of Gothikana

Corvina denied hard. ‘No, I just went for a walk. I needed to clear my head after yesterday.’

The older woman studied her for a minute, before nodding. ‘Just so you are aware, any faculty and student mingling outside class is frowned upon at Verenmore, unless there are special circumstances.You’ve already had one of those. As your point of contact, I highly recommend not having another.’

Corvina gripped her skirt. ‘I just went for a walk.’

Kaylin began to head on her way. ‘I find that unlikely, Corvina. Especially given the slept-in state of your very distinctive clothes, the same ones you were wearing yesterday. Watch your step.’ She gave her a meaningful look and left.

Shit.

Hurrying back to her tower after the encounter, Corvina saw a few students already outside. Thankfully, none of them paid any attention to her as she slipped in and went up to her room. It was empty, Jade probably still in the medical room.

Corvina threw her bag to the side and collapsed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what she was going to do. If she wanted to stay at the university, she couldn’t risk being with Vad again outside of classes, no matter how tempting it was. Moreover, she couldn’t be with him again, not after knowing what he found out on his own. But how did he do that? The institute had assured her that all the patient records were confidential. They hadn’t even shared them on her university application. So, who was this man, this twenty-eight-year-old part-time professor of literature who got them? She didn’t understand.

But she needed to speak to Dr Detta. Somewhere on this campus, there had to be a phone for emergencies, and she needed to find it. The fact that Troy would’ve known a detail like that sent a pang through her heart.

Shaking off the gloom lest she stayed in bed all day, Corvina took her towel and toiletries, ready to take a shower before the bathrooms got occupied. Unzipping her boots and taking off her clothes, she stripped down, wrapped the big towel around herself, and went out of the room to the common showers.

There were eight of them and a large common area with sinks in white, and beige tiles that matched the walls. It was still pretty early so the stalls were all empty, only a night light on in the space.

Corvina turned on the main lights from the switchboard at the side of the door and moved to the shower stall she always used, one at the very end. The plumbing inside it was old and the pipes groaned when she turned on the faucet. A steady diagonal stream from the nozzle came a few inches above her head.

Locking the door, she hung her towel and tested the water, satisfied. The reason she liked this stall was because the water was never too hot or too cold in it. It automatically came out just at the right temperature. Standing underneath the spray, Corvina tilted her head back and let the water cleanse her, soothe her, replenish her, washing away all the stress down the drain.

Her wet hair reaching her waist, she picked up her herbal shampoo from the basket on the slab just as the lights suddenly went out. The sound of glass shattering echoed in the wide space.

Corvina paused, blinking a few times to let her eyes adjust to the darkness as her pulse spiked, and turned the shower off. Wrapping the towel around herself again, she opened the door slightly and looked out into thecommon area. Only a little light filtered in from the single arched ventilation window at the side.

She crossed the communal space to the switchboard, surprised to see all the switches were on. It must’ve been a blackout of some kind. Her eyes went to the mirrors above the sink. There were four of them, each one two sinks’ wide, in an ornate, antique metallic frame that looked extra fancy to be in a communal bathroom.

One of the mirrors had shattered and the pieces lay splintered around the sink and the floor underneath it. Curious to investigate the cause, she stepped in front of the sinks and looked up at her reflection in the beautifully framed mirror beside the shattered one.

Wild, pitch-black hair surrounded an unusual face, with natural sun-kissed skin, high cheekbones, a wide mouth, a silver ring glinting on a short, straight nose, a long neck, petite shoulders, and prominent collarbones above an ample pair of breasts. And tilted eyes, a shade of purple so odd to others who had never seen it before. They were her mother’s eyes and her father’s hair, from what her mama had told her once.

‘Hair the blackest of black like feathers of the Raven,’ she’d said, telling her why she named her Corvina.

Shaking her head at herself, Corvina stilled as she saw something in the mirror. Her eyes in the reflection slowly turned black, the whites dissolving into the black holes that expanded from her pupils and crept to the edges. Heart thumping, she watched, her grip on the toweltightening as her reflection stepped closer to the mirror with those terrifying eyes, a tear falling down the reflection’s face.

‘I know you can hear me,’ came the feminine voice with the rotten scent.

She took a step back, shaking, unable to believe whatever she was seeing. It wasn’t real. It was her brain. But even if it was her brain, the illusion was terror-inducing.

The reflection stepped closer to the mirror, and suddenly the whole thing cracked like something had smashed into it from the other side, the mirror bulging in the shape of someone’s hands trying to get out.

A scream left her throat as she fell back, sliding away from the mirror, her hands cutting on a few fallen shards of glass on the ground.

‘Corvina!’ A loud shout from the door had her eyes flying to find Roy and another girl standing there, watching her with concern. They turned the lights on, and Corvina looked up in surprise, her heart running a million miles a minute, sweat drenching her already wet body.

‘What the hell?’ Roy came into the bathroom, her eyes on the sink. ‘What’s going on? Did you break the mirror?’

Corvina shook her head frantically, swinging her gaze up to the mirror that had smashed with her reflection.

It was intact.

Trembling all over, she somehow managed to get up to her feet, her knees locking in place as she saw the only broken mirror was the first one. What had happened to the second? Had she imagined theentire episode? She was sure the lights had been turned on without any electricity.

She needed to get out of there.

‘Hey, hey.’ Roy snapped her fingers in front of her face. ‘What happened? Did someone do this?’

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