Page 10 of Live To Tell

“Um. No. We should only take the tiara.”

She frowns. “Not your stone?”

“Only if I want to shout from the rooftops ‘I stole something from a room I’m banned from entering’.”

“Why on earth would you do such a thing?” Violet’s inability to differentiate what’s literal or not amuses me still, but she gets pissed if I show that amusement, and usually wait for her to catch up nowadays. “Oh. Figure of speech?”

“Yeah. I meant, the stone's easily detectable, and whoever stores items will know I’ve taken it.”

“But you do stand on the rooftop on occasion. Once with Wesley, when you threatened to throw him off with magic.” Violet edges towards the stone steps and pauses, head slanted as she listens for movement or voices before we step into the heart of the forbidden area.

Oh, yes. I’ve a clear memory of that day. I would never wish the arsehole dead, and I know ‘don’t speak ill’ of him, but Wes was a vicious bastard who got off on the power his father’s position gave him.

Leif found me on the cusp of acting on impulses created by angry magic—one of the first times he interrupted when I lost my shit. I would've terrified Wes into thinking I'd force him to jump, but not finished the spell.

Or would I? There's something in me I can't trust, and Wes tapped into that darker side Violet now encourages. Wes assaulted a witch girl and justice wasn't served—Lucia forced to leave the academy rather than implicate him in a crime. Yeah, privileged bastard thought he could take what he wanted from anybody.

That’s what led to his near-death, pissing himself, experience. Still, added benefit—he never bullied me again.

I startle as Violet touches my hand. “Rowan. What’s wrong? Your energy shifted weirdly. Is this area influencing you?”

The growing burn in my chest now spreads through my limbs and is more than the heat of anger prompted by my thoughts. Magic. I quickly glance at my hands. No shadows—at least a memory can’t do that. Yet.

Memories of Wes’s actions against that girl prompt other images. “You never told me what happened with Wes’s friends at the party,” I say quietly as we sneak up the stairs. “Did they touch you?”

“Strange of you to ask now,” she comments. “And yes, you know that. Grayson prevented me from pulling them apart for the audacity.”

“They’re lucky Grayson didn’t remove their organs.”

She sneers. “I saw into their heads. I would’ve removed their dicks if they'd tried anything.”

Violet’s matter of fact tone never switches when she’s joking, and in this case I uncomfortably believe that she isn’t. “Grayson. Why was he there?”

She pauses and looks back, her eyes gleaming in the dim moonlight cast through a window at the top of the steps. “At the party? Kai invited him.”

“No. In the bedroom, as if he knew you’d be there.”

“He likely followed me. Grayson possesses stalker tendencies; something not unusual for hemia.”

“Right.” I arrived on the scene upstairs at the party because I sensed a shift in Violet’s magic, even from a distance. Maybe Grayson did follow—or maybe he experienced the same thing as me, but through his weird connection to her blood?

I’m unsure how or why some vamps get hung up on each other’s blood. Is that to create a deeper connection with each other? Or are they looking for an extra high? I asked Violet if she felt any different now that Grayson’s blood flowed inside her. She became so quiet and still that I kicked myself for asking the question.

Then she kissed me. Despite her protests earlier, Violet soon figured out that's the best way to shut me up.

And Violet really doesn’t like talking about Grayson. The pair behave as normally towards each other as Grayson and Violet could ever manage, guarded like the early days, but friendlier. Although there's no way anybody can miss the undercurrent that'll drag them down—and together—sooner rather than later.

“Is that the library?” Violet points at where one of the double doors remains, and when I nod she scurries forward.

Violet shares the disappointment I had the first time I snuck into the circular room—no books, only empty shelves on the intact parts of the four floors. The old librarian’s desk remains too—a semi-circle close to the front of the library. Even the magic contained beneath the academy mostly drained after the disaster, and left the library an empty shell. Still, that energy must’ve been bloody strong if these remnants exist.

Violet stands in the library’s center and tips her head to the high ceiling where the shelves stretch up and around us. The place absorbed the smell of the wood that smoldered in the fire that missed this room and has a cool mustiness from disuse. I would’ve loved this place and the opportunity that magic offered.

“Did your parents attend the old academy?” asks Violet.

“Probably.”

She looks back to me. “Probably. How do you not know? Aren’t yours founding families?”

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