Page 57 of Shadow Caster
“It’ll be okay.” I patted his taut bicep.
“Yeah. It will.”
We parted ways, and I headed to Minnie’s dorms. I’d said what I needed to make him feel better, but the whole virus shtick felt wrong. I mean, how did that explain the blood we’d found or the fact that Lottie’s shoe had been discovered in the gardens and her body in the hothouse?
* * *
Minnie greetedme with a hug and then yanked me into her room. The familiar scent of her raspberry shampoo hit me. The room looked different. My side anyway. Bed stripped. Books gone. Dead.
“Bloody hell, did you hear?” she said.
I focused on her eager face. “Huh?”
“About Lottie.”
“Yeah. I was just at the med bay with Harmon.”
She blinked up at me in surprise. “You and Harmon are hanging out now?”
Were we? “No. Yes. I mean the cadet thing means we kinda have to.”
“And how is that going?” She flopped down on her bed and crossed her legs in the familiarlet’s gossippose.
“Um … good.”
“That’s it?”
What could I tell her without breaking the oath? Not much. “I can’t really talk about it.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I figured.” She gnawed on her bottom lip. “But are you okay? I mean, how is your room, and the other guys … Are they accepting you?”
“There’ve been a few issues, but your brother was actually nice to me.”
She mock gasped and clutched her chest. “No! Lloyd?” Then she grinned. “He can be an ass, but he’s not an idiot. If you have the mark, then you’re one of them. He’ll treat you with respect.”
“What about you? How’s the studying going?”
“Urgh. I have literally spent every spare moment in my library nook. I have it all set up for study. Books and notepad and pens, and so far, no one has touched my stuff.” Her expression sobered. “What about you. You have a test coming up too, right?”
She must know some stuff from Lloyd’s first year. “Yeah. In three weeks.”
“I remember Lloyd was super tense before that one. I figured it wasn’t a written test.”
“No. No, it isn’t.”
We lapsed into silence for several long beats.
She blew out a breath. “I fucking hate that there’s this whole part of your life I’ll know nothing about now.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Did it? “We have shit loads of other stuff to bond over.” Didn’t we?
“Yeah, course we do.” She smiled weakly.
Two days … it had barely been two days, and we were already lapsing into uncomfortable silences.
“Ooo.” Minnie bounced on the bed. “Did you hear about Oberon?”
“No.”
