“I mean no offense by it, I’m just curious.You seem like you’re much older than you look.”
“Well, I appreciate the compliment,” she says, folding and refolding her hands, and for a moment it looks like she has an extra knuckle.“But I’m old enough to run a school and run it well.And that means laying down the law when it comes to errant teachers such as yourself.”
“One hundred years?”I press on.“Two hundred years?”
She lets out a bark of a laugh.“Mr.Crane, I am not immortal.”
I lean forward in my seat, my elbows on my thighs as I stare her right in the eyes.“No.But you wish you were.”
Her back straightens.“Don’t we all?”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head.“I don’t.I told you I’ve been with a vampire.This particular one had to watch his love die while he could only live on, still pining for her hundreds of years later.I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
Leona tilts her head to study me for a moment.I hate the way her eyes feel on my skin, like buzzing flies landing and then taking off before you can swat them.
“I don’t believe you,” she surmises.“You’re too curious to just submit and die.You want to know what happens to everything and everyone, don’t you?You want to watch what happens to the world.But I can tell you what happens to the world, Mr.Crane.This world burns.Eventually this world will burn and all that’s left will be ash…and us witches.”
I stare at her for a moment before I smack my knee.“I’d like to stick to my original answer.”
She gives me an acidic grin.“Very well, Mr.Crane.You’re lucky that such immortality will never be thrust upon you anyway.You’re slated to die, just like everyone else.”
The skin prickles at the back of my neck.I take a chance.
“Who is Goruun?”
Her body stiffens.“I’m sorry?”
“Goruun,” I repeat with a smile.“I’ve heard that name thrown around here.I’ve tried to do research at the library about it but I can’t find anything.”Which is a half-truth.I haven’t had time today to do any research, but I figured it’s better to hear it from her anyway and see if it matches with what I find in the future.
She stares at me blankly for a moment and I feel that pinch of intrusion at my temple, like she’s trying to read my thoughts again.I remain steady in blocking her.I don’t even flinch.
“I don’t…,” she begins.Then she clears her throat and gives me a hard look.“I mentioned Goruun to you on the first night we met.”
The memory slides into place.I knew I had heard it somewhere the moment that Brom mentioned it.
“I wasn’t put on this earth by Goruun to blend in,” I say softly.
“That’s right,” Leona says.“And it’s still true.”
I fix my eyes on her.“And so Goruun is…God?”
She rubs her thin lips together, her eyes seeking the ceiling in thought.“Goruun is…divine.He is not God.He is the deity of our coven.So,agod if you will.”
More likely a demon, I think.
“And you believe your coven’s deity has something to do with me?”
“Oh, he has something to do with everyone who crosses my path,” she says brightly.“Think of this school as a web.”
I swallow hard, my nails digging into my knee.“And we’re all just flies in it?”
“You don’t have to be a fly, Ichabod,” she says.“You can be a spider instead.Your long legs, your black hair, your dark nature—I think you’d be a very apt arachnid, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I don’t have a dark nature,” I say, wishing I didn’t sound so defensive.
“But you do,” she says.A pause follows, heavy enough to fill the entire room.“I know you killed your wife.”
I bare my teeth at her, anger turning my hands into fists.“It was an accident.You know it was an accident.”
