Page 22 of Wicked Bonds
After dinner I have one last class before I can go hide in my room for the weekend. Alchemy, which seems like it’s basically chemistry for kids with trust funds and magic. The teacher tells us to pair up. Nobody volunteers to work with me. Thorne’s in this one too, unfortunately, and her group laughs so hard one of them actually chokes herself. I end up as a group of one, which honestly, is probably the best possible outcome. Group work can suck my balls.
“Try not to poison yourself,” the teacher says as he hands me a sheet of instructions and three vials labeled with actual skull-and-crossbones stickers.
I run through the steps, and even though I’m half-assing it, the results are good, better than good, actually. My potion comes out clearer than Thorne’s, whose brew is the color and texture of dog vomit. But when the teacher comes by to inspect, he sniffs at mine and then shrugs. “Acceptable, I suppose. Next time, add more finesse.”
“Is that before or after the eye of newt?” I call, but he ignores me.
I finish early, so I take a detour to the bathroom, lock myself in a stall, and roll up my sleeve. The mark is still red, the crescent standing out like a glowing sign against my skin. It throbs with every heartbeat. I dab at it with a wet paper towel, and it stings so bad I almost drop the towel in the toilet.
Just great.
I sit there for a while, staring at the mark and wondering what it means to be “property” of a coven I never signed up for. The only thing that makes me feel better is imagining how annoyed the Headmistress would be if I died of sepsis from her stupid mark before the semester ended.
I head back to my dorm. The hallway is full of the noise of doors slamming, music playing, someone yelling at someone else down the hall. I unlock my door, close it, and sink onto the bed.
The room is cold so I wrap myself in the thin blanket and stare at the ceiling. My brain won’t shut up. It keeps replaying everything that’s happened since the bar, since getting fired. I replay reading the letter, the choice I made, that crazy ritual, meeting incubi and vampires, my magic causing explosions when before I couldn’t even cause a bad smell. Everything goes round and round in my head.
Around midnight, the sounds from the other rooms die down, replaced by the occasional whisper and the distant thump of someone’s music. I lie there, wide awake, unable to quiet the thoughts. For a moment, I think I see the ghost boy from before, Drake, but there’s nothing.
I hug my arms tight and tell myself I don’t care.
But it’s a lie, and I know it.
By three a.m., I give up on sleep and decide to go exploring. I slip on my jeans, open the door, and step into the corridor. The floorboards creak, but no one stirs. The only light is a faint orange glow from the lantern at the end of the hall, the academy’s nod to an EXIT sign requirement.
I climb the stairs to the fourth floor, which is technically off-limits because it’s “under renovation,” but in reality it’s just a dumping ground for broken furniture, out-of-date textbooks, and questionable mattresses. The air up here is musty and stale, and it’s cold, like there’s no heating.
I duck into the old attic, using the light from my phone to guide me past the mountain of discarded desks and boxes. In the far corner, someone has piled a bunch of old clothes, and a mannequin head that has seen better days. There’s a broken window with a perfect moon framed in it. I sit on the windowsill, draw my knees to my chest, and stare out at the night.
After a few minutes, the temperature drops another ten degrees, if that’s possible. That’s my only warning before Drake appears, or more accurately, assembles himself from thin air.
He ‘leans’ against a stack of boxes, arms folded, head cocked. “You know there’s a curfew, right?”
I shrug.
His smile is fleeting, like he’s not used to the muscles required. “Insomnia’s a side effect. The mark doesn’t let you rest until you get used to it.”
I hug my knees tighter, shivering. “You said you were like me. Before.”
Drake’s eyes flicker. “I was. I came here, just like you, signed the Accord, did the rituals. They promised me a place in the world, said it would be different than the outside. They lied.”
“Who killed you?” I ask, because tact has never been my strong suit.
Drake glances out the window, as if the moon might have the answer. “Doesn’t matter now. In the end, it’s always the ones you trust most.” He makes it sound like a joke, but he’s not smiling.
The silence between us is awkward, but not as bad as being alone. I turn the mark on my arm toward him. “Does this ever stop hurting?”
He shakes his head. “You get used to the pain. But it never goes away completely. I’ve been dead for decades and I still feel it sometimes, a phantom pain.”
I want to ask more, but the words won’t come. Instead, I look at his hands.
Maybe he’s reading my mind, because he says, “You want to know if I’m real.”
“I want to know if any of this is real.”
Drake holds out his hand, palm up. His fingers are long and elegant, the edges wavery. I reach out, half-expecting my hand to pass right through this time.
It doesn’t.
